This paper represents one portion of an ongoing effort to elaborate on pedagogical principles based on structural-developmental (largely Piagetian) theory and research. Here, a concept of "problem structure" is developed as a means for identifying physical factors that contribute to children's ability to apply experimental reasoning.…

The relationship between teacher empowerment and the knowledge bases in teacher education is discussed. Assuming that students are not standardized and teaching is not routine, teachers must be capable of making judgments using learning theory and pedagogy, child development and cognition, curriculum and assessment. Teachers must know their…

This paper discusses critical thinking and ways education leaders can apply it to problems in educational settings. It forwards a model of critical thinking, called TC2, designed by The Critical Thinking Consortium, a group of scholars, teachers, and educational leaders in British Columbia, Canada. The model addresses four interrelated components…

In the face of increasing specialization and employer demand for higher skill levels, a new paradigm for engineering education redirects the primary focus from the engineering knowledge base (content) to the development of thinking and problem solving processes. The principles of this "Process Education in Engineering" paradigm are: (1) faculty…

This paper reflects on how the differences that surface in a program can be effectively mediated by the design of the curriculum, i.e., how an integrated curriculum combined with a collegial teaching cohort can foster enhanced quality in teacher preparation and can reconcile differences in the philosophical orientation of faculty. The example of…

There is an obvious growth in the use of distributed and online learning environments. There is some evidence to believe that collaborative learning environments can be effective, especially when using advanced technology to support learning in and about complex domains. There is also an extensive body of research literature in the areas of…

Introduces a collection of papers presented at a symposium on the situationally-specific character of problem-solving practices. Reports that findings provoke speculation about relations among social contexts, knowledge and activity, and relations between school-learned problem-solving techniques and those used in other settings. (KH)

Research on how the brain works has resulted in wider-scale adoption of the principles of problem-based learning (PBL) in many areas of education, including technology education. The PBL approach is attractive to curriculum developers because it is based on interdisciplinary learning, results in multiple outcomes, is integrated and…