This paper, in both English and Spanish, offers a meta-model of the learning process which focuses on the importance of the reflective learning process in enhancing the quality of learning in higher education. This form of innovative learning is offered as a means of helping learners to realize the relevance of what they are learning to their life…

A cognitive demands analysis of a learning technology, a term that includes the hardware and the computer software products that form learning environments, attempts to describe the types of cognitive learning expected of the individual by the technology. This paper explores the context of cognitive learning, suggesting five families of cognitive…

Four studies investigated when children became able to detect that the words of a story could support multiple interpretations. Each subject saw two eight-sentence stories of each of four types (no-cause, unbiased, biased-proximal, and biased-distal), designed to support multiple interpretations. After reading or hearing each story, the children…

This paper reviews the literature on the intellectual abilities and performance of deaf learners within educational settings. The paper addresses such questions as whether deaf learners learn differently from hearing learners; whether deaf learners have the same intellectual capacity as hearing learners; how opinions have changed regarding the…

A lesson in essay planning designed for college and graduate students of English as a Second Language is described. The intended audience is a group with varied linguistic backgrounds and levels of English proficiency. The lesson's objective is to develop metacognitive skills for planning well-organized essays. A computer program using graphics,…

Possibilities of conceptual and pragmatic analysis exist for identifying epistemological processing in teacher thinking. These modes of organizing thought condition classroom planning, shape meaning from a virtual didactic knowledge-store, and scaffold further pedagogical interactions. The semio-cognitive grammar proposed is adapted to the…

This paper focuses specifically on the reasoning skill called proportional reasoning. Areas addressed include: (1) a definition (providing examples of direct and indirect proportional reasoning); (2) the development of proportional reasoning (discussing survey results of students logical reasoning abilities); (3) planning for the future (proposing…

A study of the effects of the Instrumental Enrichment cognitive intervention program with 41 severely hearing impaired secondary school students was conducted. Experimental and control groups were compared in regard to general cognitive functioning, problem-solving strategies, reading comprehension, and mathematics. Experimental subjects were…

General theory of transfer of knowledge and skill in learning second languages and ways in which language awareness may contribute to second language learning are examined. It is concluded that while recent second language acquisition research work and theories do not support or refute transfer of general language principles to the learning of…

Recent research and program development in the areas of metacognition and related teaching and learning strategies is the subject of this issue of the newsletter. The lead article reviews reasons for the current interest in cognition and metacognition, clarifies the concepts of cognitive and metacognitive strategy instruction, and describes key…

A study investigated the relationship between sixth grade students' reading attitudes and awareness of certain parameters of reading and their performance on a reading comprehension test. Subjects, 100 students scoring between the 5th and the 95th percentiles on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) comprehension section, completed a reading…

Empirical findings on the efficiency of memory processes in exceptional children are outlined. Cognitive deficits are considered to be central to many academic and social skill problems of children with mental retardation and learning and behavior problems. In response, educators and psychologists have devised ways of training such students to use…

Self-schemas are knowledge-structures that organize information relevant to the "self." Research has demonstrated that persons who are schematic (versus aschematic) for a particular trait process self-relevant information on that dimension more efficiently. To determine whether individual self-schemas are organized into relatively…

Punctuation serves as a system of visual markers that contradict previously generated false grammatical expectations. Word order conditions define the redundant or critical aspect of punctuation cues to visual display. Parsing (grouping) sentences into meaningful phrases and clauses aids language comprehension, and children who have reading…

Describes how a learning strategies approach can enable learning disabled students in secondary schools to study effectively, using as an example the acquisition of specific information from reading a chapter in a science text. (JC)