This report examines the process of learning large complex subject matters, by asking about the ways in which teachers and students communicate the necessary knowledge structures to each other and how a student comes to select an appropriate paradigm for solving a problem and revising inappropriate solutions. Protocols from several different learning situations are explored, and an attempt is made to put together the pieces in a cognitive theory of learning and teaching. The model of the student is incomplete. The study concludes that the component parts for learning a language of programing are disconnected and unstructured parts of what should be a consistent, cohesive, conceptual structure, and that theories need to be devised that guide understanding, yield observable predictions, and help advance studies of the learning and teaching process. (Author/RB)