Although it is essential to incorporate new technologies into the classroom, says Isseks, one trend has negatively affected instruction--the misuse of PowerPoint presentations. The author describes how poorly designed PowerPoint presentations reduce complex thoughts to bullet points and reduce the act of learning to transferring text from slide to…

Since 2002, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills has been the leading advocacy organization in the United States focused on infusing 21st century skills into education. Its "Framework for 21st Century Learning," the result of a consensus among hundreds of stakeholders, describes the skills, knowledge, and expertise students need to…

Overly text-based accounts of reading comprehension have been displaced by multifaceted considerations of meaning-making subjectivity and shared understandings held by communities of readers. Reading may be viewed as a meaning construction process, as writing, as engagement, and as a situation-based activity. Includes 26 references. (MLH)

As codirector of Harvard University's Project Zero, David Perkins has conducted long-term research programs on creativity, problem solving and reasoning, and learning in the arts, sciences, and everyday life. He explains a new program designed to help teachers connect thinking strategies with subject matter, so that students can better manage…

Debunks five misconceptions about improving creative thinking. To encourage students to think creatively, instructional techniques should reflect an integrated set of mental skills, use materials mimicking real-life situations, consider students' beliefs and tendencies toward creative thinking, show metacognitive sensibility, and foster a creative…

The strategies that expose learners to the large volume of knowledge, enables them for creative thinking, self-management and deep reading. The different ways of creating knowledge with the help of creativity, communication, organization, problem solving and decision-making are discussed.

Describes the Future Problem Solving Program, in which students from the U.S. and around the world are tackling some complex challenges facing society, ranging from acid rain to terrorism. The program uses a creative problem solving process developed for business and industry. A sixth-grade toxic waste cleanup project illustrates the process.…

Creativity requires application and balancing of three abilities--the synthetic, the analytic, and the practical. Teachers should serve as creativity role models, encourage questioning of assumptions, allow mistakes, encourage sensible risk taking, design creative assignments and assessments, let students define problems, and reward creative ideas…