John M. Keller is one of the most recognized and respected scholars in the field of educational technology and instructional design. He has worked at the junction of psychology, education, and technology. Along with many other contributions, he has developed an instructional design theory that can be used successfully both with traditional and…

The current stage in an on-going research program of student learning is summarized. With two more years to run, provisional research provides the beginnings of a model of student learning which is neither static nor mechanistic. Recent research has placed emphasis on describing how students learn and how learning is affected by the academic…

Former New York governor Mario Cuomo discusses the inequities of public schooling, the trend toward charter schools, and the importance of making education a national priority. Richard Lewis, founder and director of the Touchstone Center (New York City), discusses children's literature, the intrinsic motivation that children have for learning, and…

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…

Describes an investigation of whether grades in an intensive French course could be predicted by combining information obtained in a brief interview conducted by the teacher with information from academic records. Results showed that overall grade point average is the best single predictor of performance in foreign language courses. (SED)