Children's natural curiosity should be more adequately satisfied, resarch has suggested--especially in grades 4 to 6. Traditionally, the scope and sequence approach which is a learning-what-others think or have thought rather than a learning-to-think-for-oneself method begins during the middle school years. It is interesting to observe that…

Developed in response to deficiencies in verbal and quantitative skills demonstrated by students entering New Jersey colleges and taking the New Jersey Basic Skills Placement Test, this overview is designed to help interested educators orient themselves to the important and rapidly growing field of thinking skills instruction. The Task Force on…

Well-known questioning strategies, built on question classification systems, are examined. Types of question classification systems are identified as: "hierarchical," which are sequential and cumulative; "non-hierarchical," which are based on elements which should not be rank ordered; systems which are "context-bound" to specifics; and…

In this interview, author Art Costa asserts that the teaching of either content or thinking skills in isolation is unproductive. To combine these approaches, he recommends selecting content for its relationship to thought processes. He also observes that administrators who model intelligent behavior thereby create a climate for thinking. (TE)

This digest considers the role of personal computers in the education of gifted students. There is evidence that students are working "smarter," whether they are learning and using more information, understanding key concepts and relationships better, or developing higher level thinking skills. Research findings concerning the specific…

This study investigated the perception of university teachers regarding what critical thinking skills are needed for successful undergraduate study, and determined the relative importance of these skills within and across academic disciplines. A total of 31 university teachers in 6 academic disciplines of Physical Sciences, Biological Sciences,…