The Standards for Mathematical Practice provide an excellent foundation for encouraging students to think, reason, and persevere like mathematicians. Many elementary school teachers, however, face a challenge unpacking these practices and figuring out how to implement them in their classrooms. Christine Moynihan wrote "Common Core Sense:…

As teachers of political theory, our goal is not merely to help students understand the abstract reasoning behind key ideas and texts of our discipline. We also wish to convey the historical contexts that informed these ideas and texts, including the political aims of their authors. But the traditional lecture-and-discussion approach tends to…

This paper discusses how modifying the true-or-false (T/F) test, by requiring written explanations, reveals major weaknesses and hazards of the simple (unexplained) T/F tests popular among teachers. But, more important, the modification transforms the test into a very efficient formative assessment tool. It opens a window that allows a teacher to…

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…

Whitehead's analysis of experience can contribute to an understanding of the process of liberal education by distinguishing among the experiential bases and characters of various kinds of knowledge. Subjective experience is identified as the basis of all philosophical inquiry. (JN)

Demonstrates how the development of transferable skills can be promoted as a matter of policy in undergraduate geography programs and implemented throughout individual classes. Defines transferable skills as skills of a widely applicable nature independent of the disciplinary context. Presents two examples of transferable skill development in…

The focus of this essay on the psychological and pedagogical issues of the college introductory logic course includes a look at the roots of the informal logic movement, an analysis of logic and language, a statement of the need for evaluation of the informal logic course, and some suggested alternatives. (JN)

Argues that much of current science curricula and instructional strategies do not accommodate the thinking and reasoning capabilities of students. Level of capacity for abstract logical reasoning, whether the capacity can be cultivated/enhanced, consequences of mismatched intellectual levels and instructional modes, and what thinking/reasoning…

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 discussion of ethics instruction in a distance education course the question is raised of how to develop a "fit" between the objectives of a course and the strategy for instruction, interaction, and evaluation. The paper discusses specific problems confronting distance education course planners. First, while the objectives of…