We describe findings from a research partnership involving a global airline manufacturing company (The Boeing Company), and learning scientists and aeronautical engineers from the University of Washington. Our starting point for the partnership focused on an 8-hour introductory composites course that was designed for company employees. In phase…

We compared how 8 religious believers (historians and clergy) and 8 skeptics (historians and scientists) read a series of documents on 2 topics: the Biblical Exodus and the origins of the first (American) Thanksgiving. Readings by religiously committed historians differed from those of their non-religious peers. Navigating between the competing…

In this article, we describe the design principles undergirding "productive failure" (PF; M. Kapur, 2008). We then report findings from an ongoing program of research on PF in mathematical problem solving in 3 Singapore public schools with significantly different mathematical ability profiles, ranging from average to lower ability. In the 1st…

Many types of learning require the mapping of information across situations. The proposed organizational framework extends the cognitive study of mappings across problems to include mappings across representations, solutions, and sociocultural contexts. I apply one-to-one, one-to-many, and partial mappings to analyze representative cases that…

As transfer researchers have begun to investigate a broader range of phenomena, they have correspondingly put forward new processes to provide explanatory accounts for the occurrence of transfer. This move coincides with a call to acknowledge the contribution of social interactions, language, cultural artifacts, and normed practices to the…

The study of knowledge transfer rarely draws upon motivational constructs in empirical work. We investigated how students' achievement goals interact with different forms of instruction to promote "transfer," defined as preparation for future learning (Bransford & Schwartz, 1999) Students were given either invention or tell-and-practice activities…

This study compared the affordances of 4 multimedia learning environments for specific learning processes. The environments covered the same domain but used different instructional approaches: (a) hypermedia learning, (b) observational learning, (c) self-explanation-based learning, and (d) inquiry learning. Although they all promote an active…

Some intensive quantities, such as slope, velocity, or likelihood, are perceptually privileged in the sense that they are experienced as holistic, irreducible sensations. However, the formal expression of these quantities uses "a/b" analytic metrics; for example, the slope of a line is the quotient of its rise and run. Thus, whereas students'…

Evaluating the impact of instructional innovations and coordinating instruction, assessment, and testing present complex tensions. Many evaluation and coordination efforts aim to address these tensions by using the coherence provided by modern cognitive science perspectives on domain-specific learning. This paper introduces an alternative…

In this article we describe and illustrate an analytical perspective in which educational policies are viewed as designs for supporting learning. From the learning design perspective, a policy comprises 3 components that we term the what, how, and "why of policy": the goals for the learning of members of the group targeted by the policy, the…

This study investigates the ongoing debate in the conceptual change literature between unitary and elemental perspectives on students' knowledge structure coherence. More specifically, the current study explores two potential explanations for the conflicting results reported by Ioannides and Vosniadou (2002)and diSessa, Gillespie, and Esterly…

The concept of "intrinsic motivation" lies at the heart of the user engagement created by digital games. Yet despite this, educational software has traditionally attempted to harness games as extrinsic motivation by using them as a sugar coating for learning content. This article tests the concept of "intrinsic integration" as a way of creating a…

The goal of this article is to develop a new perspective on transfer of learning integrating cognition, emotion, and bodily experience. It is based on a case study with a 10-year-old girl as she explored the use of a motion detector, allowing for the simultaneous graphing of the position versus time of 2 moving points. The paper elaborates on the…

This study explores Knowledge Building as a principle-based innovation at an elementary school and makes a case for a principle- versus procedure-based approach to educational innovation, supported by new knowledge media. Thirty-nine Knowledge Building initiatives, each focused on a curriculum theme and facilitated by nine teachers over eight…

This article reports on an ethnographic study of a 10-year-old's pursuit of school-based mathematics across school and home to suggest that participating in school-based mathematics is a cross-setting phenomenon in at least 2 ways. First, I illustrate how accomplishing school-based mathematics literally extends into the home and how individuals…