The concept of competence is increasingly the basis for (re)designing VET. In competence-based VET academic disciplines are no longer starting points for curriculum development. Competence needed for working in practice, however, is. Competence-based learning is a dominant trend in VET in several countries because of fewer expected problems in the…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of engaging students in Kolb's experiential learning cycle on facilitating students' simulation game performance and knowledge application skills in learning with a business simulation game. A sample was drawn from a population of business-major undergraduate students at the School of…

This study reports an adaptive digital learning project, scientific concept construction and reconstruction (SCCR), that was developed based on the theories of Dual Situated Learning Model (DSLM) and scientific reasoning. In addition, the authors investigated the effects of an SCCR related to a "combustion" topic for sixth grade students…

The National Research Council ([NRC], 2001) has stated that formative assessment is essential to fulfilling the mission of the National Science Education Standards (NRC, 1996). This paper explores the relative utility of four different types of formative assessment prompts in eliciting middle school students' ideas about sinking and floating.…

This study explored children's development of a "mental time line" and considered the propositions that younger children view the temporal domain as bi-polar, while older children display signs of using finer gradations on their mental time ruler that approach conventional structures of clock and calendar time. Subjects were a group of…

This book defines and explains some 40 key concepts in adult education and training, and it presents an analysis of the more than 150 concepts that can be made by combining core and qualifying concepts. The concepts have been grouped into seven chapters, with the following core concepts discussed in chapter 1: adult, education, and training, plus…

This investigation is part of a combined research/curriculum development project in which children's learning is being examined in the context of developing and testing instructional units on 3-D geometry in grades 3, 4, and 5. There are two components to the article. First, the strategies and cognitive constructions that students utilize to…

Researchers and educators are calling for increased use of technology and attention to function concepts in school mathematics. Students often have considerable difficulty gleaning pointwise and global information from Cartesian (R squared) representations of functions, whether they are hand- or machine-produced. Described here is an interactive…

Sound practice requires sound theory, and if instructional technology is to mature either as a field or a profession, theory that not only speaks to those problems unique to the field, but is also conceptually sound is required. Instructional technology, though having a practical focus, must build conceptual theory bases rather than relying…

The results of a study of the meiosis models utilized by individuals at varying levels of expertise while reasoning about the process of meiosis are presented. Based on these results, the issues of sources of misconceptions/difficulties and the construction of a sound understanding of meiosis are discussed. Five individuals from each of three…

Visualization is the process by which one is able to create and sustain mental images for observation, analysis, and experimentation. This study consists of a compilation of evidence from historical examples that were collected in order to document the importance and the uses of visualization within the realm of scientific investigation.…

Two studies looked into the ability of 3- to 5-year-olds to understand the idea that a person who intends to bring about a bad outcome will be pleased when he does so. Previous studies had conflicting outcomes; one found children under age 7 did not understand the idea, while another found that most 5-year-olds did. The first of the two studies…

In composition studies, negotiation and consensus are threatened by growing epistemological schisms that privilege one way of knowing, one kind of knowledge, even one kind of language over another. Those who assert that one epistemology is more "right" set the stage for paradigmatic conflict. Some theorists predict a dismal resolution of…

A session in drawing at the school boiler room provided motivation and a new look at the definition of art for a seventh grade art class. (RK)

Author considered the range of questions involved in aesthetic education focusing on the categorization of art works as carriers of meaning in the broadest sense, signs. (Author/RK)