Traditional education, employing lectures or telecommunicative instruction methods, has been very effective in providing topical facts. However, the development of student skills and thinking ability require higher levels of instruction and more opportunity to practice and apply acquired knowledge. As students progress through a particular…

Presents the first four of nine strategies that students can use to develop their critical thinking skills: using "wasted time" to practice critical thinking; choosing a problem at the beginning of each day to work on; developing a heightened awareness of universal intellectual standards; and writing journal entries each week that analyze…

Addresses the problems of how moral character is developed and what moral character consists of. Emphasizes the development of democratic, ethical dispositions and focuses on two features of an educational environment that are especially important: respect for students as persons and the democratic organization of the groups in which the young…

The author, a teacher of developmental English, details her methods for increasing student ability to process and analyze information. Advocates taking developmental classes on regularly planned alternative class site experiences in order to instill a wonder about learning and a willingness to engage in sophisticated information processing and…

Provides educators with a problem-solving process that can be used in K-12 classrooms. Defines, in particular, a solution-focused problem-solving strategy that emphasizes goal identification and implementation. States that this technique helps make positive behavioral changes in students' lives by focusing on future solutions instead of past…

Since the introduction of child-centered thinking in educational research, discussion has continued on whether the purpose of public schools is to teach students predetermined, set subject matter or to allow them more control over their education. Traditionalists have asserted that scientific methodology must be used to develop learning…

Explains how Town Hall meetings with high school students and California legislators-- the LegiSchool Project--provided the kinds of experiences that enabled the author to examine three essential conditions of democratic citizenship: student interest, respect, and appreciation. Illuminates what these three conditions consist of and how many…

Fear appeals are persuasive messages that emphasize harmful physical or social consequences of failing to comply with message recommendations. Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) emphasizes cognitive or rational reactions to fear appeals and identifies four message components which initiate corresponding cognitive mediating processes of appraising…

Relates the experiences of Sioux Valley School and the Deubrook Area School (South Dakota) in the Arts as Basic Curriculum Grant Program. Recounts these participants' stories as they modified arts curricula, which has helped students improve the amount of information they can retain and use higher order thinking skills to solve creative problems.…

David Kolb's experiential learning theory involves a framework useful in designing courses that meet needs of diverse learners. Course designs providing systematic activities in concrete experience, reflective observations, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation will be sensitive to students' learning styles while challenging…

Questions why imagination is not brought into mainstream education as a cornerstone of learning and why education frequently makes students incapable of relating to what is alive and meaningful within themselves. Without imagination, it is impossible to experience the infinite qualities of our senses, nor to shape our thoughts and images of these…

Sets forth strategies intended to provide classroom teachers with some options that enhance writing for all students, but also provide special needs students with the structure they need to be successful as well. Describes the writing process, which includes prewriting activities, creating a draft, reviewing and revising, editing for polish,…

Presents an interview with Allen Schoer, CEO of TAI Resources, regarding his definition of creativity, what stimulates individual creativity, what makes it grow, and how his experiences and ideas can be applied in any classroom for an effective learning experience. (VWC)

Advocates teaching critical thinking through showing students the logic of a subject. Uses one example of instruction in history that allows students to think their way through the logic of the subject rather than memorize bits and pieces of someone else's thought (never grasping its logic). (VWC)

Advocates inclusion of moral issues as part of curriculum planning. Argues that children need encounters with moral issues as part of their schooling experiences. Presents four metacognitive strategies for promoting moral thinking about children's literature in language arts and beyond schooling. Includes recommendations for classroom…