Jason Anderson's proposal, in "ELT Journal" (2015), for an affordance-based approach to lesson planning raises important issues in teacher education. However, his arguments against the role of planned outcomes in favour of an affordance-based focus using learning opportunities as units of planning fail to acknowledge the complexities…

With the emergence of a wealth of research-based information in the field of educational neuroscience, educators are now able to make more evidence-based decisions in the important area of curriculum design and construction. By viewing from the perspective of educational neuroscience, we can give a more meaningful and lasting purpose of leading to…

Appeals to reform science education by policy makers are not new phenomena. To be sure, while science reform efforts have been ongoing occurrences for nearly six decades, perpetual educational reform efforts as a whole have been evolving and gaining momentum in number for more than a century. The general motivation for continual reform appears to…

Describes characteristics of successful problem solvers and reports programs at all educational levels designed to help students improve their skills. (Author/MLF)

Justifications are given for the development of philosophy courses for inclusion in the high school curriculum. Various subjects such as mathematics, science, and language can be given more unity and meaning through the teaching of philosophy. (JN)

Describes a course module designed to instruct beginning engineering students at the University of New Mexico in problem-solving methodology as suggested by Polya (understand, plan, carry out, look back). (SK)

Describes the development of a curriculum to improve problem- solving ability when faced with uncertainty by (1) encouraging students to examine their thought processes, (2) presenting fallacious arguments, and (3) providing better tools for decision making. Relevant psychological research, some problems of teacher training, and a small-scale…

This paper describes Topdown Conceptual Analysis (TCA) and how it can be used to produce the knowledge base for the development of courseware. Some of the prerequisites and basic theories behind TCA are explained. In discussing what is meant by learning and teaching a concept, an explanation is given of how a complex concept can be taught in terms…

According to the literature on cognitive style, of utmost importance to critical thinking is the organization of segments of information into a comprehensive whole. Creative thinking is a process in which a person becomes aware of a problem or difficulty, searches for possible solutions from past experience, and evaluates, modifies, and tests…

Describes a 5-year futures curriculum planning process currently used by an 11-member network of California and Canadian school districts. Addresses the definition of information technology and the definition of reasoning that describes the inductive, as well as the deductive, higher-order thinking skills. (MLF)

This paper discusses ways that students can better be taught to think. It argues that poor/low-achieving students served by Chapter 1 of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act of 1981 could genuinely profit from instruction on thinking and that, for maximum impact, such instruction should be introduced as a course in itself, separate from…

The idea that the brain may be more complex and varied in the ways that it responds to and interprets information than is generally recognized suggests that both the left and right hemispheres are in need of total development. In discussing the development of curriculum that will bring into harmony the functions of both brain hemispheres, it is…

Of all the uncertain problems which curriculum theorists encounter, teaching curriculum to graduate students is among the most problematic. On the one hand is the mass of knowledge and concepts about curriculum. On the other hand is the student who, more often than not, has limited experience in putting abstract ideas to practical use. If the…

This monograph sets forth a theoretical basis for advocating a program of disciplinary arts education as an integral part of general education from kindergarten through grade 12. The title, "The Role of Imagery in Learning," indicates the centrality of aesthetic perception of images. To make the case, it is necessary to show by analysis,…

This document describes curriculum and resources designed to foster and expand the philosophical thinking of elementary and middle school students. The booklet begins with excerpts from and a discussion of Matthew Lipman's novel "Harry Stottlemeier's Discovery," written to help elementary and middle school students discover both formal…