A new interdisciplinary science and mathematics course for preservice elementary/special education teachers at LaSalle University (Pennsylvania) is examined. "Explorations in Science and Mathematics" was designed to develop core skills, critical thinking and communication, understanding of math and science as real-life activities,…

Self-regulation has long been seen as a desirable but difficult to achieve instructional aim. This is particularly true of online learning, where users have limited instructional support and where attrition rates tend to be greater than in face-to-face teaching. This paper examines the nature of self-regulation, identifying affective and cognitive…

This book provides 108 activities to stimulate students to think about their own involvement in their education. Students must be able to think about and apply the information they acquire in the classroom to their lives outside of school. It presents practical information on metacognitive theory and reading and studying skills. The ready-to-use…

A study comparing peer and teacher evaluations of British university biology students' (n=39) performance found such comparison misleading as a guide to the validity of peer assessment. When individual criteria were analyzed, agreement of peers and teacher ranged from 31-62%, with specific areas of the criteria prone to over- and undervaluation.…

Compares skilled and unskilled adult readers' approaches to finding the main idea in text. Describes and tests Author's Intended Message (AIM), a holistic main idea strategy suitable for independent use by college study skills students. Investigates the effectiveness of this strategy. (RS)

Students need to be aware of their motives, of task demands, and of their own cognitive resources, and to exert control over the strategies appropriate for handling the task. Two intervention studies are described, one with at-risk university students and the other with high school students. (Author/MLW)

Investigates a complex aptitude treatment interaction (ATI) of intelligence and metacognitive skill as aptitudes with structuredness of learning environment as treatment, based on a study of undergraduates in simulation environments. Highlights include computer-assisted learning and experiential learning; ATIs and discovery learning; and learning…

Investigates the difficulties that college students (n=83) have in reading and comprehending physics texts. Students were taught the skill of formulating clear questions on textual material. The strategy stimulated students' awareness of the difficulties in reading comprehension and could be used by students as a self-monitoring technique to…

Explores a structured approach to support student teachers in the use of reflective self-evaluation as part of ongoing professional development. Reviews the Scottish context of initial teacher education, and describes elements of the approach: classroom climate, pairing of student teachers to encourage peer discussion, and…

Reports on a laboratory experiment where students measured their heart rate, blood pressure, mood, alertness, and cognitive performance. Measures showed significant circadian heart rhythm variations. They were strongly correlated and peaked at different times. Discusses the implications of this and students' reactions to the experiment. (MJP)

Utilizes questionnaires to examine Carugati and Mugny's assertion that social representations of intelligence are organized both by social identity and unfamiliarity. Discovers a consensus concerning representations of intelligence organized by social identity. Includes a copy of the questionnaire, breakdown of the responses, and other statistical…

Describes the development of a learning profile instrument prototype to help prepare college learners for learner-controlled instruction. Discusses learner strategies for increasing metacognitive and cognitive skills, academic motivation, required background knowledge, and self-efficacy, and reports results of testing that showed achievement gains…

This article examines writing conference discourse in one English as a Second Language (ESL) basic composition course. The study is based on a 25,000-word corpus of 10 writing conference interactions between the instructor and seven students. Through a microlevel analysis, the authors demonstrate how and to what degree the writing conference can…

A study applying schema theory to the teaching and learning of second language linguistic structures is reported. Subjects were students in the English language program of an Austrian university's school of business administration. The experimental groups received 8 hours of instruction in the schematic attributes of learning processes and then…

A study was undertaken to explore whether students using an advance organizer-metacognitive learning strategy would be less anxious, more self-directing, more efficient, and more self-confident when learning unknown computer applications software than students using traditional computer software learning strategies. The first experiment was…