Creative thinking and how to foster it is the focus of this resource book for teachers. Part One of this book emphasizes the theoretical background of the creative thinking concept and discusses the relationship between creative thinking, problem solving, science, and technology. Part Two focuses on three levels of inventing, each examining…

Research developments in cognitive psychology, and their implications for teaching and learning at the level of professional education, are summarized. Areas discussed include organization of long-term memory, influences on storage and retrieval from memory, problem solving and transfer/use of analogy, concept formation/categorization/pattern…

Reviews a monograph which addresses children's higher-order thinking skills. Suggests the following for teaching problem solving: identify and develop content-independent and content-dependent problem-solving skills, connect developed skills through workshop-style activities to subject discipline, and help students identify and reconstruct their…

Presents a study that indicates that second grade students (n=117) do select manipulatives that match the story context in measurement and partition division word problems, that they can solve division word problems, especially when matched manipulatives are used, and that division without remainders are more accessible to solution. (39…

Examines cognitive elements used by 29 student teachers in solving problems involving instruction, discipline, supervisors, and time demands. Assesses relationship between problem types and teachers' strategies. Examines effect of experience and knowledge on problem-solving processes. Links problem-solving decisions to task environments…

Discusses a new approach to mathematics education that moves away from methods that tell students what to do and toward methods that help students build mental representations of mathematical concepts. Contrasts the previous and emerging views and examines aspects of the new approach. (26 references) (MDH)

Presents two spreadsheets for middle school students applying Polya's heuristic to help develop number sense, reasoning abilities, and problem-solving skills. Spreadsheet 1, "the coin problem," allows students to vary coin quantities to total $8.32. Spreadsheet 2, "ratios," develops number relationships while finding 3 3-digit…

Presents results of 46 randomly selected children's performance measurement and partitive division problems when remainders are zero, nonzero but not used in the solution, and nonzero and used in the solution. Results indicate that children demonstrate an understanding of division prior to formal instruction. (MDH)

Described is the Educational Leaders in Mathematics (ELM) Project, a four-stage inservice teacher program designed to stimulate teachers' development of a constructivist view of learning. The impact of the intervention was studied, and results indicated that teachers' beliefs were affected, producing changes in teaching strategies. (MDH)

Children's (n=70) solution strategies to a variety of multiplication and division word problems were analyzed to determine performance levels and strategies used. Solution strategies were classified at three levels: direct modeling with counting; no direct modeling with counting, additive, or subtractive strategies; and use of known derived facts.…

Describes four studies that explored how search experts and domain experts conducted searches in full-text, end-user search systems. Problem definition/expectation; query formulation; examination and extraction; reflection, stopping, and search monitoring; and system effects are examined for each study. (26 references) (EA)

Discusses two methods for developing and assessing fluid abilities. In the first method, students are asked to solve increasingly unfamiliar problems in a domain; and in the second, students are required to organize knowledge in new ways or view it from different perspectives. (SLD)

Examined cognitive processing and performance of 12 average seventh-grade students during cooperative problem solving. Factors that impeded performance included lack of an experiential framework, imposition of unrequired restrictions, lack of individual monitoring of cognitive activity, and unproductive beliefs. Factors that enhanced performance…

Six experiments with 42 kindergartners, 190 first graders, and 15 second graders in Germany investigated why arithmetic word problems with an unknown reference set are more difficult for children than are problems with an unknown compare set. Lack of access to flexible language use makes these problems so difficult. (SLD)

Thirty-five college students with learning disabilities (LD) and 25 students with a history of mild head injury (MHI) were compared on tests of neuropsychological, psychological, and academic achievement. Students with LD performed poorly on linguistically oriented psychoeducational tests, whereas students with MHI showed cognitive deficits in…