A full description of how a STEM protocol model can be an effective and comprehensive implementation of a complete initiative program. A discussion of the factors affecting student comprehension, progress, and cognitive development is made. A historical discussion of STEM policy and programs is included, as is an assessment program in the context…

There are many reasons to be curious about the way people learn, and the past several decades have seen an explosion of research that has important implications for individual learning, schooling, workforce training, and policy. In 2000, "How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition" was published and its…

Assessments associated with learning progressions are designed to provide diagnostic information about the level and nature of student understanding. Valid interpretations of such diagnoses are only possible when students consistently express the ideas associated with a single learning progression level. Latent class analysis was employed to…

Two studies investigated the relationship between learning names and learning concepts in preschool children. More specifically, we focused on the relationship between learning the names and learning the intended functions of artifacts, given that the intended function of an artifact is generally thought to constitute core conceptual information…

Most students in most schools today study subject matter. They and their teachers conceive of the educational task as committing to memory large numbers of facts, formulas, and figures. A far more sophisticated perspective emphasizes teaching disciplines and disciplinary thinking. The goal of this approach is to instill in students the disposition…

This study investigated 2-year-olds' understanding of others' intentions in a social learning context. After seeing a demonstration of how to open a box, children in two "No Prior Intention" conditions were less likely than those in "Prior Intention" conditions to open the box themselves when the adult unsuccessfully tried to open it. Results…

Investigates several key statements from Piaget's cognitive psychology and their meaning for science education. Concludes that teaching must be conducted as reversibly as possible so that when the teacher presents his own assimilation schemata it will be equilibrated by the pupils' schemata. (GA)

This paper demonstrates a method for constructing long variables using items that elicit partically correct responses across ages. Long variables may be defined by students at different ages (year levels) attempting common items within a test containing other items considered to be appropriate for each age or year level. A developmental model of…

An experiment was conducted to determine whether tutoring is a learning activity from which the tutor, as well as the tutee, gains cognitively. Undergraduate students (N=80) participated in the study. Half of the subjects studied selected material to tutor another subject. The other half studied material to prepare for a test that they would take.…

Effects of object training and photograph training on comprehension of category labels by 10 severely mentally retarded children and adolescents were explored. Results indicated that acquisition and transfer did not differ, yet generalization was significantly more accurate with objects than with photographs. Futhermore, generalization was…

Assesses the hazards of models of cognitive development and the positivist views of language that support them. Considers how alternative views of language and learning can help develop a method of teaching that views reading and writing as interpretation and the making of meaning. (RBW)

Children ages 3 to 5 years old are observed in a series of 3 experiments assessing their use of counterfactual thinking in causal reasoning. Results suggest that young children readily interpret the cause of an outcome in terms of a contrast between the observed sequence of events, and a counterfactual alternative in which the outcome did not…

Presents the results of three studies examining children's conception of the mind itself as an independent, active entity. Findings revealed a developing ability in children to interpret and produce statements personifying the mind and provided considerable evidence of children's movement toward a conception of the mind as an active agent…

Mismatch between gesture and speech was used to study cognitive processes that characterize the transition between incorrect, but rule-governed, problem understanding to correct rule-governed understanding among 90 fourth graders in Chicago (Illinois). Data support the idea that the transitional state is characterized by concurrent activation of…

This book brings a philosophical perspective to the topic of children's thinking. It attempts to answer the questions of what it is to think and understand, and how children do so. The book provides an introduction to the philosophy of education as it relates to children's understanding, and is careful not to assume any previous philosophical…