genetic factors in political orientation?

An article by Jim Giles published in New Scientist, and posted by the Center for Genetics and Society, surveys a variety of studies leading some people to see genetic factors in political inclinations, including liberal v. conservative, and likelihood to participate or not.
The studies include twin studies, gene studies and personality studies. This calls for [...]

“Testing boosts memory, study doesn’t”

A study reported last month in Science is being discussed around the blogosphere under titles like “Testing boosts memory, study doesn’t,” and “Testing, not studying, makes for strong long-term memories.”
I think the 2½-page published report of the study itself makes for an excellent item to “test” students’ (I’m thinking now of grad students in education) [...]

Curriculum & the post-(cognitivist) synthesis

If “cognitivism” is an ideology that represents learning and understanding as matters that can be understood, in a reductive way, as being, in their essence, just matters of “cognition,” it does not follow that advancing beyond cognitivism would mean taking up a newer ideology of “postcognitivism.”

constructivism v. postpositivism

I am very interested in the general question of constructivism v. postpositivism, however, and I have a paper coming out soon that the reader would be interested in, I think. It should be published sometime this spring, and the citation will be: Whitson, James Anthony. “Education À La Silhouette: The Need for Semiotically-Informed Curriculum Consciousness.” Semiotica 164, no. 1/4 (2007): 235-329.

The First Year Grad Student’s Dictionary of Educational Terms

Here is the current version of an online dictionary for first-year graduate students in education. It is developing continuously, since it is maintained on a wiki page that anyone can join in and make additions, revisions, or whatever.