Theories of college student and adult intellectual development have shown that learning to interpret, evaluate, and construct knowledge evolves in a developmentally predictable fashion, and have offered explanations for the difficulties some students face when asked to make their own decisions (Baxter Magolda, 1992; Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger,…

Why does the city of Reggio Emilia in northern Italy feature one of the best public systems of early education in the world? This book documents the comprehensive and innovative approach that utilizes the "hundred languages of children" to support their well-being and foster their intellectual development. Reggio Emilia is a fast-growing…

Intellectual (cognitive) development, the emergence of increasingly sophisticated forms or levels of understanding, reasoning, and rationality is an ongoing process of reflection, coordination, and social interaction that begins in early childhood and continues, at least in some cases, long into adulthood (Moshman, 2003). In this process, language…

Education rests on the foundation of culture in the broadest sense of that word. How deeply and solidly that foundation has been laid down determines the size and solidity of the building that can be constructed on it. This applies in particular to higher education, which is by no means designed solely to offer just a body of specialized…

Hypothesized that cognitively complex individuals would be more effective than cognitively simple individuals at accomplishing a communication-dependent task. Analysis revealed that messages (generated by an exercise with tinker toy models and a password game) of complex individuals were more effective than the messages of comparatively simple…

Discusses the differences between Piagetian and post-Piagetian conceptions of intellectual development and the implications of these differences for science education in early childhood. (GLR)

Four areas of evaluation will be briefly discussed: 1) those areas of functioning which should be assessed, 2) instruments which were used in each area, 3) knowledge of instruments, 4) preliminary results for each instrument. The areas related to the preschool child which should be evaluated consist of: 1) the child's cognitive functioning, 2) the…

Presents theoretical background for building an early childhood curriculum based on the Educare approach. Five principles are explained. They emphasize that learning drives development and that social interaction, interpersonal relationships, mutual understanding, and culture are unique in developmental processes. Concludes that teachers can have…