Project Abstract
The Project on Learning was a long-term research project looking at how students, during their middle school (9 – 11) years, learn from their classroom experiences. The focus of the project was on how students' knowledge and thinking are progressively shaped by classroom activities, and how teachers influence this development.
The Project on Learning was unique in the extremely detailed data gathered on individual student experiences and in the extent to which students' parallel knowledge and thinking processes were explored. During each of the 12 studies that make up the project, sets of miniature videocameras, individually worn microphones, and trained observers were used to obtain every detail of the continuous experiences of selected individual students during the course of a science, social studies or mathematics unit. Dr Ronnie O’Toole obtained extensive data on student feelings and emotions as they participated in classroom activities and explored how the emotional life of students is related to the
