Argues that students are conditioned by years of multiple-choice testing to use only simple recall and view knowledge as an uncataloged museum full of independent facts that are collected, recited, and left to gather dust. (DDR)

Reports research that investigates the encoding that students use to develop molecular models at the undergraduate level. Focuses on the translation between symbolic and subatomic representations of molecules. (Contains 31 references.) (DDR)

Explores whether exposure to increasingly sophisticated mental models at different points in a chemistry education class showed up in patterns of preference and use of models in interpreting physical properties and phenomena. (Contains 92 references.) (DDR)

Examines a classification system that offers a framework for discussing and choosing questions regarding curricular organization, classroom environment, and teaching and learning strategies. (Contains 21 references.) (DDR)

Students (n=45) in an introductory course in hydrology used a Vee map to guide their laboratory investigation. The Vee mapping technique was utilized by groups of students working together during the investigation and was graded with a scoring rubric developed by the instructor. At the end of the investigation, students completed a survey…

Lends support to the idea that the quality of the cases used in problem-based learning affects the nature of student learning in this context. Outlines seven principles adapted from research on learning and cognition that can help guide case design. Contains 22 references. (DDR)

Points out that college freshmen expect major changes in the academic environment as they move from secondary school. Recommends that faculty use this opportunity to show students how to think for themselves. (DDR)

This study of physics problem-solving identifies reasoning mechanisms that enable the problem-solver to achieve the transformation to a physics structure of the problem situation. Elaboration is explored as a mechanism in fulfilling this transformation by providing beginning problem-solvers with elaborations that they failed to infer. A card…