Information feedback is widely believed to play an important role in cognitive processes such as monitoring and self-regulation. It has been linked to enhanced motivation and increased performance. Assisted by feedback, students confirm or change knowledge and modify cognitive processes for better performance. This study investigated self-selected…

These three issues address topics relating to the education of children with deaf-blindness. The fall 1999 issue features the article, "Central Auditory Processing Disorders: An Overview of Assessment and Management Practices" (Mignon M. Schminky and Jane A. Baran), which discusses symptoms of Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD),…

This presentation describes the student retention program designed at El Camino Community College (ECC) (California) with a soSHOWme grant. SoSHOWme is the title of a $20,000 Funds for Instructional Improvement grant awarded by the California State Chancellor's Office to measure the improvement of student retention of lecture information that has…

Investigated concept development related to particulate theory of matter in 130 children (ages 8-12) in two contrasting Warwickshire middle schools. Results are set against background policies/practices in science teaching as revealed by responses from teacher questionnaires (N=60) and analysis of several science curricula. (JN)

The foreign language teaching process depends on making various choices regarding materials, approaches, and activities. This decision-making process is analyzed, the needs behind it examined, and a decision hierarchy developed. A model is suggested for teacher education that incorporates this hierarchy into preservice, inservice, and graduate…

After discussing task-specific information and form/content dissociation, presents evidence from training studies which suggests ways in which the form/content distinction might guide researchers in designing diagnostic measures leading to specific instructional strategies based on the diagnostics. (Author/JN)

Reports on two studies that examined differences in the processing strategies of beginning readers, as indicated by an analysis of oral reading errors. (FL)

Peer interaction combined with the use of concrete models and analogs found to enhance learning (cognitive and affective) for both formal and nonformal operational students (N=51). Instruction in control class was based on lectures, CHEM study laboratories and individual work. (Author/SK)

Uses a case vignette to consider the possibility that the Rorschach FM index may be a forerunner of abstract thinking. Data support the major finding that FM may enable educational diagnosticians to more accurately estimate the intellectual capabilities of some preschool minority and other culturally disadvantaged children. (Author/JAC)

Examines content and problem effects of formal thought in 13-year-olds (N=120). Three controlling variables tasks with different content and two question-type tests (analysis and controlling questions) were administered. Findings, among others, indicate that content and problem effects contribute to variance on formal reasoning problems.…

Research indicates that classroom controversy facilitates student problem solving, creativity, perspective taking, epistemic curiosity, conceptual conflict, and transition in stages of cognitive and moral reasoning. Thus, creating controversy is an important teaching strategy for increasing learning and intellectual development. Conditions…

Presents two composite and contrasting cases of how elementary school children are taught history. One student receives instruction heavily slanted toward institutional political history, while the other learns these concepts incorporated throughout social history illustrated with different types of learning activities. Suggests workable…

Discusses the notion of a language proficiency threshold that short circuits the transfer of reading ability from the native language (L1) to a second language (L2). This study, in which cognitive complexity of tasks and students' L2 proficiency levels vary, focuses on university students in France reading preprofessional English texts. (39…

Research developments in cognitive psychology, and their implications for teaching and learning at the level of professional education, are summarized. Areas discussed include organization of long-term memory, influences on storage and retrieval from memory, problem solving and transfer/use of analogy, concept formation/categorization/pattern…

A study evaluated the process of training teachers to use an interactive multimedia package for classroom instruction in ecology. Ways in which teachers assessed relevant printed text and hypertext information were mapped and analyzed. Search patterns were classified into two cognitive strategies (sequential, goal oriented). Sequential strategies…