This paper stems from a dialogue on the subjects of learning and learners: one forged out of experiences in research and teaching, and the application of psychodynamic insights, developmental psychology and recent work in the neurosciences, to thinking about adult learning and subjectivity. We argue that some notion of the self needs to be…

The non-computational brand of cognitivism is based on the premise that performances, including those of children, are generated by mental models or representations, i.e., "internal" resources. The sociocultural approach, on the other hand, regards context, i.e., an "external" resource, as the chief means of elaborating…

The recently completed review of visual education, "First" we see, makes recommendations that contrast sharply with most traditional forms of art teaching in Australian schools. Although the review implicitly stands against a narrow conception of a visual education founded on artistic and aesthetic concerns, I argue that the concept of…

Determination of conceptual problems which may cause alternative conceptions in science and technology textbooks is significant to increase in success of pupils and teachers. It is a vital issue to arrange books in a way removing or decreasing these faults in order to improve a better education via textbooks. This study aims to determine…

Many students fail to develop a conceptual understanding of organic chemistry. Evidence suggests this failure goes hand-in-hand with a failure to grasp the techniques, meaning, and usefulness of curved arrow notation. Use of curved arrow notation to illustrate electrophilic addition appears to be a critical juncture in student understanding.…

This study investigates Turkish students' knowledge structure coherence in physics. In particular, this study investigates the conflicting findings reported in Ioannides and Vosniadou's [Ioannides and Vosniadou [2002] "Cognitive Science Quarterly," 2, 5-61] and diSessa, Gillespie, and Esterly's [diSessa et al. [2004] "Cognitive…

This article describes the development of knowledge and understanding of translations of Jeff, a prospective elementary teacher, during a teaching experiment that also included other rigid transformations. His initial conceptions of translations and other rigid transformations were characterized as undefined motions of a single object. He…

Young children learn through play. This has long been acknowledged in the writings of educational theorists dating back as far as Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and Froebel and is strongly supported by current early childhood research. Play is at the heart of contemporary early childhood pedagogy, and this has led to a strong belief in the importance of an…

This study aimed to explore secondary students' explanations of evolutionary processes, and to determine how consistent these were, after a specific evolution instruction. In a previous study it was found that before instruction students provided different explanations for similar processes to tasks with different content. Hence, it seemed that…

Data from 154 interviews with students in grades 3 to 13 were analyzed to suggest a developmental progression of conceptual understanding associated with the sample space for two ordinary six-sided dice tossed simultaneously. The model was then considered in the light of responses to an extension task involving three six-sided dice with four sides…

One of the most captivating things about plants is the way they capture the Sun's energy, but this can be a difficult topic to cover with elementary students. Therefore, to help students to make a concrete connection to this abstract concept, this series of solar-energy lessons focuses on leaves and how they act as "solar collectors." As students…

While music is as old as humanity, conducting as a profession is relatively new. Although a nineteenth-century model has served as the template for the training of conductors, many undergraduate conducting students will spend their teaching careers working with inexperienced and/or amateur musicians. Additionally, the size of many ensembles in…

One hundred forty typically developing 5- to 12-year-old children were assessed with a test of advanced theory of mind employing Happe's strange stories. There was no significant difference in performance between boys and girls. The stories discriminated performance across the different ages with the lowest performance being in the younger…

According to Piaget, 5- or 6-year-old children gradually acquire the concept of time based on events (Piaget, 1969). In his experiment of investigating children's time concepts, Piaget found that children of these ages were able to place pictures based on sequential events with some errors; the younger children made more errors. The National…

A conceptual knowledge of numbers, especially fractions, is an important link to a conceptual understanding of variables. This article suggests activities that explicitly show the connections between numbers and variables using the number line as the connecting device. (Contains 7 figures and a bibliography.)