Teaching and learning are highly social activities. Seminal psychologists such as Vygotsky, Piaget, and Bandura have theorized that social interaction is a key mechanism in the process of learning and development. In particular, the benefits of peer interaction for learning and motivation in classrooms have been broadly demonstrated through…

This paper takes a cognitive perspective in an attempt to analyze mental mechanisms involved in contextual learning. In the following, it is suggested that contextualized environments evoke mental mechanisms that support reasoning about "what if", imaginary situations--utilizing a powerful mental mechanism known from the history of physics as…

A model for processes of abstraction, based on epistemic actions, has been proposed elsewhere. Here we apply this model to processes in which groups of individual students construct shared knowledge and consolidate it. The data emphasizes the interactive flow of knowledge from one student to the others in the group, until they reach a shared…

Personal epistemologies, individuals' beliefs about the nature of knowledge and how one comes to know, can facilitate and constrain cognition, motivation, and learning (Pintrich, 2002). They are especially relevant in teacher education because preservice teachers will become responsible for the knowledge and knowing of others. This study…

Argues that radical constructivism addresses an age-old paradox in philosophy: that the knower must construct for himself a true representation of the real world, but the only access to that world is through the act of knowing. Discusses contributions of several epistemologists to this theory of knowledge and outlines current criticisms of it.…

The purpose of this article is to describe the basic paradigm of the epistemological belief system and to offer new ideas about the conception and study of personal epistemology, namely an embedded systemic model and coordinated teams approach to research. The epistemological belief system approach to personal epistemology is distinguished from…

Higher education policy is seeking, in the interest of "quality assurance", to reward teaching and the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). Academic language and learning (ALL) advisers, who work closely with students to improve their performance in their courses of study, have much to contribute to SoTL. ALL advisers who adopt…

Students learn important concepts and ways of thinking by building on their own actions and experiences. In much of higher education, the primacy of textbooks and the lectures that accompany them are inconsistent with the nature of student learning. Some students manage to learn despite the problems from this emphasis, but educators can do much…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to report and discuss research that sought to explore how the individually purposeful nature of new employee workplace learning might be understood through its conception as epistemological agency, that is, the personally mediated construction of knowledge. Design/methodology/approach: Using a sociocultural…

The theme of the 38th meeting of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (PME 38) and the 36th meeting of the North American Chapter of the Psychology of Mathematics Education (PME-NA 36) was "Mathematics Education at the Edge." Academically, the theme provides opportunities to highlight and examine…

Human knowledge consists of schemata based on the specialized procedures used to interpret events in the environment. New schemata are created by modifying models of existing schemata, i.e., learning by analogy. This means that a new situation will be interpreted in accordance with the schema most similar to it in the learner's repertoire. If the…

Offers suggestions for improving the scholarship of teaching and learning. Highlights include a general concept of scholarship; merging the scholarship of teaching with the paradigm of learning; action research; epistemology of reflective practice; Glassick's evaluative framework to assess scholarship in general; and reflective critique.…

The multisource approach to learning, based on the approach of F. C. Bartlett (1932), is discussed as an introduction to five articles on the approach. The assumptions of simplification by isolation and by integration; and the emphases on the various processes, as opposed to structures, of learning are discussed. (TJH)

Urges educators to examine the role that intuition can play in the teaching-learning process. Analyzes four models of intuitive knowledge, and reviews arguments against intuitive claims to knowledge. Discusses the universality of intuition, its relationship to self-evident truths, and its role in scientific discoveries, inventions, and art. (DMM)

Considers aspects of knowledge management that have the potential to enhance human-performance-technology research and practice. Topics include intellectual capital; learning organization versus organizational learning; the importance of epistemology; the relationship of knowledge, learning, and performance; knowledge creation; socio-technical…