Despite official government srt (in various jurisdictions around the world) for providing students with opportunities to construct their own knowledge within the context of formal schooling, school science systems continue to place greatest priority on teaching and learning of "products" of science (e.g., laws and theories), while…

A technological transformation during the past decade has eliminated the boundaries between formal and informal learning. As people adapt to a knowledge-driven society, a cultural transformation is occurring. Lifelong learning is an essential goal of education as a means to improve the quality of life for an individual, a culture, or a society.…

The "teaching point" persists, and will no doubt persist further, but this article reviews decades of thinking to challenge it as prime unit of "planning" for language teaching and proposes instead the "learning opportunity" as a unit of "analysis" with major implications for planning. This proposal leads me to advocate practitioner research…

A great deal of value is placed on student research within universities, exemplified by the prominent role of the dissertation or extended written work at the end of many programmes, and the more general benefits of embedding research-based learning into a curriculum in order to develop higher-order learning. This article reports on a…

Accessible, practical, and empowering, this book gives school professionals the tools to put students in charge of their own learning. Going beyond traditional "study skills" guides that focus on the mechanics of homework completion and test taking, the authors address the underlying psychological factors that influence academic success and…

This guide assists trainers of school age program staff who are using the self-instructional book "Caring for Children in School-Age Programs," during which time trainers must play an active role. Chapter 1 describes the content, format, and training approach of "Caring for Children in School-Age Programs"; discusses how to offer training based on…

From 1980 to 1990, the number of native Spanish speakers in the service region of Virginia's Germanna Community College (GCC) increased significantly. In response, GCC implemented a Spanish language occupational/technical curricula for law enforcement personnel and health professionals. Classes focused on the development of highly effective…

This document consists of a series of three short articles that appeared in the "Resource Connections" column of three consecutive issues of the newsletter of the Boston chapter of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD). The articles are intended for adults considering enrolling in a professional development program,…

In this chapter, a college teacher describes the use of personal projects in a class on mathematics teaching for preservice teacher-education students. The personal project required students to learn something new or to do something they had never done before, and to document their learning through a journal or other reflective record. In…

This book, part of a Mexican series of instructional materials, is directed toward people over the age of 15 who are interested in beginning, continuing or finishing their basic education. It explains the pedagogical model developed for adult education in Mexico based on the following features: (1) the content of the textbooks must be useful for…

This prospectus defines a senior project to be completed over three years in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the bachelor of arts degree in elementary education at Concordia College (Michigan). This senior project requires students to document achievement of four goals of a professional development plan: (1) a desire and capacity for…

Studies of self-directed learning (SDL) have generally concentrated on who self-directed learners are and what/how they learn. In 1980, Gibbons et al. used biographies of 20 "expert" self-directed learners to explore the principles and determinants of SDL. Tough (1967), Guglielmino (1977), and Spear and Mocker (1984) have respectively…

This report describes ongoing activities and results of the HyperSign Immersion Project developed at the Public School for the Deaf in New York City, New York. The project's objectives were to: (1) provide a means to enable Deaf students to assume a self-directed role in education; (2) provide an on-site prototype of a technologically supportive…

A college faculty member reports on a sabbatical project in Bolivia, in which he shared ideas about bilingual and bicultural education in indigenous communities and helped with four activities of the Andean Oral History Workshop: (1) the self-education of a group of women aged 18-70 who decided to explore together issues such as rights, education,…

This paper presents ideas about what is required for the development of expertise in computer technology and considers those requirements in the K-12 setting. This analysis comes from the point of view of long-time, self-trained users of personal computers and computer communications and long-time observer of the growth of technology expertise in…