Describes exploratory activities for a young child seeking to become acquainted with the world in which he lives. (EB)

Describes principles which achieve good writing assignments in the social studies: (1) define the content and skills teachers want students to learn, (2) devise assignments in which level of difficulty of task fits the level of the goal, (3) let students speculate on the topic, and (4) present the topic so that students know how and what to do.…

To participate in the increase and dissemination of knowledge about children, the researcher must accept the problem of seeking to become a child again, to re-find discovery and inquiry without their metaphysical underpinnings and conventional opinions. An extended anecdote illustrates one way the author attempted to do this. (MJB)

In research testing, guided motor learning yielded the best performance in terms of time efficiency in the initial task; transfer was most effective when learning conditions were similar for initial and transfer tasks; and guided learning in the initial and transfer tasks led to better retention of performance than discovery learning. (JD)

Flexibility in the application of instructional methods is the best approach to a teaching situation. Insofar as possible, a combination of traditional learning methods with heuristic (problem solving) and programed ones should be used. (CK)

Describes an inquiry investigation to enable students to understand water cohesion, surface tension, and heating curves for water. The investigation includes several activities organized in a three-phase learning cycle: (1) exploration; (2) concept invention; and (3) concept application. (DDR)

Describes computation of a continued radical to approximate the golden ratio and presents two well-known geometric interpretations of it. Uses guided-discovery to investigate different repeated radicals to see what values they approximate, the golden-rectangle interpretation of these continued radicals, and the golden-section interpretation. (KHR)

Describes Maria Montessori's early learning "Casa" setting for young children and other models for educational programs for young children. Discusses the importance of setting in facilitating natural learning in young children and the five steps in the natural learning cycle--observation, participation, role-playing practice, eureka…

Examines relations between the features of discovery simulations, the learning processes elicited, the knowledge that results, and the methods used to measure the acquired knowledge. Discusses intuitive knowledge and describes a study of post-secondary students that investigated the instructional effectiveness of discovery simulations in physics.…

This article presents a learning cycle with the aim of helping students understand the evidentiary basis of scientific claims. Students consider data and interpretations as used to support contradictory views in the debate surrounding the causal relationship between human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).…

This article is a rejoinder to TM 501 928. (DEP)

In this study, which involved 87 freshman English students at Brigham Young University, the variety of practice items and the strategy of Practice (convergent or divergent) were systematically varied, in order to assess their effects on a rule-finding task. The task was presented in an expository fashion, using both rules and practice, and in a…

Reported is a study of the effects of using the counterintuitive event in science teaching on subject-matter achievement and subject-matter retention of upper-elementary school students. Two separate units of instruction based on the demonstration-discussion method were designed for the study. A unit of instruction was designed for the control…