Literature on retention for first-year students appears to focus on the emotional, interpersonal, and financial problems these students face when beginning their post-secondary education. The article accepts the importance of these issues and their effect on retention. However, the article suggests that there are other issues that should be…

This special issue is devoted to the cultural-historical school of thought about mental development based on the work of Lev Vygotsky. The research of Vygotsky addressed the sociocultural basis of higher-level cognitive functions, and ascribed an influential role to human speech and other mediational tools in originating changes in cognition and…

Middle-level teachers can avoid passive seatwork and encourage students to think using a "guided thinking" approach, designed to help adolescents develop more sophisticated thinking and reasoning skills. Essential elements of guided thinking are described, along with an implementation strategy and the principal's role in fostering…

Many chemists want to be effective teachers but have little background in psychology or education on which to build successful practices. The primary audience for this book is chemistry teachers at the secondary and tertiary levels, and its purpose is to encourage readers to construct a new understanding of how their students learn. This book is…

Intelligence is here defined in terms of component processes, and three programs are reviewed that train aspects of intelligence as specified by this theory: Feuerstein's "Instrumental Enrichment," Lipman's "Philosophy for Children," and the "Chicago Mastery Learning" program. Central suggestions are provided for…

Cognitive developmental learning is a concept expressing the hypothesis that learning has a continuing, cumulative, and transformational function in the development of intelligence. Two important questions are, "How much do we know about methods?" and "What classes of knowledge and abilities should we develop?" An analysis of past investigations,…

Proposes using instructional games as a means of reaching students with varying learning styles. Describes several games involving problem solving, role playing, and simulations. The games incorporate aspects of Sternberg's theory that intelligence can be conceptualized as analytic, creative, or practical. (MJP)

The aim of this report was to provide teachers of preschool and early elementary school children with a brief summary of current psychological research and theory concerned with the development of cognitive skills in young children. Psychological research often provides a basis for procedures teachers use in the classroom. Each chapter of the…

A discussion of the assumptions about the composition of intelligence which underlie preschool intervention efforts today offers theoretical evidence of a hierarchical arrangement of learning processes. International studies on cognitive development have concluded that the emergence of symbolic or conceptual thought occurs at a transitional age…