We traced the impact of a sequence of five research-based professional development sessions on a cohort of mathematics teachers' Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching. The sessions focused on task design and implementation as a means of building teachers' pedagogical capacity. Findings revealed that teachers' pedagogical knowledge pertaining to…

This paper presents a neo-Piagetian model for examining the development of early communication and language skills; discusses its origins in the current developmental literature, and provides a brief overview of a preliminary version of 12 scales developed for assessing communicative development based on the model. The model attempts to provide a…

Preference scores were determined for several different groups of students ranging in age from seven to adult. In addition, instruments were administered to determine the cognitive level at which the students were capable of functioning. Comparisons between the students' cognitive level and preferences were made. The results indicated that the…

Presented is a theory of learning handicaps based on psychoeducational and developmental considerations. Identified are five of the author's biases about remediation such as the tendency for teachers to continue remediation beyond the point of usefulness. Proposed is the existence of five task requirements such as attending to the task, attaching…

This paper questions evidence for the thesis that causal reasoning of older children is more logical than that of younger ones, and describes two experiments which attempted to determine (1) whether there are true developmental differences in causal reasoning, and (2) what explanations for developmental differences can be supported. In the first…

This paper presents a study designed to determine if groups of concrete and formal operational children can be identified through the technique of cluster analysis, using a battery of Piagetian tasks. A Total of 64 subjects, 8 boys and 8 girls from each of the second, fourth, sixth, and eighth grade levels, were selected from a public elementary…

This discussion of transitive inferences (if A greater than B & B greater than C, then A greater thean C) emphasizes an information processing analysis of logical thought. The two basic factors considered in such an analysis are (1) the task environment, including its structure, demands, decisions required, and information given; and (2) the…

Recent research studies and texts in composition demonstrate the growing belief that students' difficulties with the writing tasks assigned to them are inextricably linked with their difficulties in handling complex cognitive processes. Through appropriate writing activities, students can be provided with practice in the intellectual functions…

To investigate developmental differences in timesharing performance, 60 boys, 20 in each of three age groups (7-, 10- and 13-year-olds), performed an auditory matching task and a tracking task alone and concurrently, the latter under two sets of instructions. Decrements produced by concurrent performance were compared for the three age groups.…

This experiment explored how incorporating the importance of task strategy use and positive achievement beliefs into cognitive modeling affected self-efficacy and skill acquisition. Students deficient in division skills received cognitive modeling of division solution strategies and practice opportunities. For one group of students the cognitive…

There is a growing interaction between psychology and education, toward basic research and toward realistic educational events. This is being accompanied by a movement toward equity in education involving the creation of environments for learning that are more adaptive to individual needs than schools generally provide at the present time.…

Middle and upper class 3- and 4-year-old children were exposed to three consecutive 5-week treatment conditions in the naturalistic setting of a half-day laboratory nursery school program. During the first treatment condition, the teacher emphasized low level cognitive questions; during the second, high level cognitive questions; and during the…

This paper discusses the use of social studies in developing critical and creative thought in preschool children. The social studies curriculum at any age level involves three principles: the development of an understanding of the social sciences, encouragement of acceptable socio-cultural behavior, and the development of critical and creative…

This paper contends that efforts at educational reform must focus, above all, on the instructional encounter between teachers and students. The argument is presented in triadic sequence: three basic assumptions about learning, three interrelated models of the instructional process, and three practical approaches to promoting cognitive achievement.…

This paper presents a study of the interactive effects of developmental factors, types of tasks, and types of models on imitation. Subjects for the study were 16 boys and 16 girls at each of the ages of 7, 10, and 14 years. Each child was administered two types of imitation tasks: an objective task on which children judged the age of unfamiliar…