In 11 North Carolina counties, extension agents interviewed 7 clients per county; 31 new agents were also interviewed. Results show that "doing" is clearly the most preferred learning mode of both groups. Combinations of learning modes were even greater learning enhancers than individual modes. Seeing, doing, and discussing were the most…

4MAT is an eight-step instructional cycle that capitalizes on individual learning styles and brain dominance processing preferences. The four major learners (imaginative, analytic, common sense, and dynamic) can use 4MAT to engage their whole brain. Learners use their most comfortable style while being challenged to function in less comfortable…

Analyzes three common learning style inventories (LSIs)-- 4MAT System, Dunn's LSI, and Renzulli and Smith's LSI--matching them to the most compatible teaching strategies. The paper presents tables to help teachers select the most appropriate teaching strategies, makes suggestions for selecting and designing LSIs, and discusses practical…

In this paper, I address some of the unique challenges of studies of learning in museums through a microanalytic case study of meaning-making among a group of youth and a curator. Through an examination of youths' forms of participation in one exhibit, I illustrate local meaning making achieved through multiple modalities--by doing, talking, and…

Three-, 4-, and 5-year-olds performed Tower of London problems under spoken, manual, and combined (requiring both spoken and manual) response conditions. Preschoolers' solutions were most goal-focused when required to give only a spoken response, intermediately goal-focused when required to give both response types, and least goal-focused when…

This article seeks to articulate developing trends in art education and practice, locating such movements within the broader cultural contexts of globalization, neoliberal capitalism, and postmodernity. Against this more general synopsis, the autobiographical position of the author as a student and teacher of art will be elucidated as inextricably…

In this article, we report a study in which we asked 137 parents and caregivers to evaluate a year-long family literacy program in which they participated. Parents valued the insights they gained about children's learning in general and literacy development in particular. They reported that they learned from each other as well as from the program…

Noted educator Carol Ann Tomlinson shares the insights that shaped her thinking about informative assessment. Informative assessment goes beyond tests and the grade book. It means assessing students both formally and informally in multiple ways and giving frequent, productive feedback on student work. Informative assessment isn't separate from…

When lecturing, teachers make use of both verbal and nonverbal communication. What is called teaching, therefore, involves not only the words and sentences a teacher utters and writes on the board during a lesson, but also all the hands/arms gestures, body movements, and facial expressions a teacher "performs" in the classroom. All of these…

This study introduces a new computer-based methodology, "concgramming", that has as its primary aim the automatic identification of the phraseological profile and hence the "aboutness", of a text or corpus. It is argued that this methodology can be employed by language learners and teachers to raise awareness of the importance of the…

Those who focus on the study of visual information continue to search for effective ways to conceptualize that inquiry. However, many visual examples are better categorized as visual/verbal collaboration, complicating analysis. When analysis is based on the assumption that visual and verbal modalities perform in similar ways, important…

For individuals with visual impairments, poorly designed labels can be barriers to receiving safe and independent access to important information about products in daily use. The authors discuss how organization and proper lighting can reduce the amount of labeling needed on food products and indicate how individuals with visual impairments can…

The authors introduce manga to educators, inspired by the comics' explosive entry into U.S. popular culture. The word "manga" refers specifically to printed, Japanese-style comics found in graphic-novel format--not to be confused with "anime" (animated Japanese cartoons, including moving images on television, movies, video…

To determine if patterns of listening and reading skill development in mildly handicapped children differed markedly from those of non-handicapped children, 180 learning disabled (LD), educable mentally retarded (EMR), and nonhandicapped (NH) children from rural and urban settings were given the Durell Listening-Reading Series. A multivariate…

Concludes that subjects' scores on simultaneously presented tasks were significantly higher than on sequentially presented tasks for both intra- and cross-sensory modalities, suggesting that the ability to integrate sensory information across learning modalities is important in reading acquisition. (RB)