This guidance report focuses on the teaching of mathematics to pupils in Key Stages 2 and 3. It is not intended to provide a comprehensive guide to mathematics teaching. We have made recommendations where there are research findings that schools can use to make a significant difference to pupils' learning, and have focused on the questions that…

Mobile devices have been increasingly utilized in informal learning because of their high degree of portability; mobile guide systems (or electronic guidebooks) have also been adopted in museum learning, including those that combine learning strategies and the general audio-visual guide systems. To gain a deeper understanding of the features and…

The authors examined the effectiveness of strategy instruction taught by general educators in mixed-ability classrooms. Specifically, the authors compared the mathematical word problem-solving performance and computational skills of students who received schema-based instruction (SBI) with students who received general strategy instruction (GSI).…

This collection of 58 articles from the recently-published third edition of the International Encyclopedia of Education focuses on learning, memory, attention, problem solving, concept formation, and language. Learning and cognition is the foundation of cognitive psychology and encompasses many topics including attention, memory, categorization,…

Involving two or more academic subjects, interdisciplinary studies aim to blend together broad perspectives, knowledge, skills, and epistemology in an educational setting. By focusing on topics or questions too broad for a single discipline to cover, these studies strive to draw connections between seemingly different fields. Cases on…

Reported are two studies which describe the early development in children of the ability to consider every one of an array of instances. Taken together with other recent studies, the data reveal early development in preschool children of a fundamental, general problem solving skill. (PCB)

Microanalysis of problem-solving activities of 10 learning-disabled and 10 normally achieving children (ages 10-12) found that, although normally achieving subjects reached more sophisticated levels of strategy use, there was no evidence that the learning-disabled subjects were inactive, passive, or maladaptive in their problem-solving attempts.…

Soar, an architecture for problem solving and learning based on heuristic search and chunking, has been applied to a variety of tasks during the development of the Soar project, the goal of which is to build a system capable of general intelligent behavior. The hypothesis being tested in this aspect of Soar research is that chunking, a simple…

This discussion of some of the research literature that is relevant to the issue of teaching thinking provides descriptions of hypothetical, ideal thinkers, and problem solvers; considers the problem of teaching thinking and problem solving; and explores the issue of evaluating programs so that they can be revised and improved. Following Bransford…

This study describes strategies fifth- and sixth-grade children used to solve the problem of determining how to control a "vehicle" they "drove" by pressing particular keys on a computer. The problem involves identifying or discovering a set of cause-effect relationships. (Author/JN)

Two experiments with a total of 37 college students showed that metacognitive training influenced strategic flexibility and metacognition of students. The studies also found it was much easier to enhance performance on closed problems than with open problems calling for creativity. (Author/DB)

Describes a study of concept mapping as a means of learning problem-solving skills. Concludes that the concept mapping subjects were significantly more successful at solving biological test questions than were the controls. Reports no significant differences between cooperative and individual mapping and mixed results for gender. (DK)

The strategies of four men with mild mental retardation when performing calendar calculations were investigated. Results suggested that subjects were aware of calendar rules and regularities, including knowledge of the 14 different calendar templates. Their strategies were rigidly applied and relied heavily on memory, with little manipulation of…

The relation of knowledge for solving problems to understanding of general principles in a subject-matter domain is discussed. Theoretical representations, called "conceptual competence," are presented to represent principles that are believed to be understood implicitly by individuals. Implications for problem-solving procedures can be…

This article discusses problem solving and how science educators can integrate problem solving into their instruction. The Search, Solve, Create, and Share (SSCS) model was developed based on the findings of problem solving research. (YP)