Demonstrates how three- and four-year-old children's (N=20) learning of a completely novel route across a city district is enhanced by an accompanying adult making the child aware of potential landmarks. The importance of permanent/ephemeral landmarks in the child's verbal and modelled-map accounts of the route and educational implications are…

Explores how children become oriented to literacy and how their perceptions of the purpose of print develop as they move toward becoming more fluent users of print. (DF)

Discusses recent research in the development of spelling, the development of spelling ability, and invented spelling and the child's voice. (DF)

An inventory assessing teachers' attitudes concerning learning processes, priorities, and student-teacher relationships was administered. An oblique factor solution yielded four moderately independent dimensions of belief describing affective and cognitive values, directive teaching behavior, and subject matter relevancy. The significance of the…

The traditional undergraduate separation of general education, the major, and the electives does not reflect what happens in the student's learning, and lacks direction and clarity of purpose. Collaboration among generalists and specialists within and between the departments is needed to prepare students better.

Four competencies of superior teachers are seen as a basis for the ideal environment to nurture excellence. They are: a student-centered orientation, value for the learning process, a need to influence individual behavior, and a belief that they possess the power to produce a desired effect in the learner. (MLW)

If librarians want to be given faculty status, they must become more involved in the instructional process. Part of that responsibility is to help inform faculty of the ineffectiveness of the lecture-textbook method in educating undergraduate students and to demonstrate that practical and constructive alternatives exist. (MSE)

Finds volumes of research on questioning and none on discussion. Defines discussion and presents concepts and techniques that facilitate it in the classroom. Recommends the need for further research. (MD)

Reports on a study of four Australian 11th-grade biology students that used stimulated recall to evaluate student thinking processes.The study confirmed the complexity of the teaching-learning process. (MD)

Questions drawn from Britain's Open University's examinations illustrate the cognitive processes fundamental to making meaning from information, an important objective of education. It is concluded that education must encourage and assist students in drawing generalizations, distinguishing the particular from the general, and understanding the…

Critical thinking alone is reactive, in that it lacks the creative elements necessary for social progress. Accordingly, the author has developed the CoRT (Cognitive Research Trust) program to teach the two aspects of perception: breadth (developing a perceptual map) and change (using the map to discover solutions). (TE)

The New Jersey Task Force on Thinking has taken the first steps toward statewide assessment of students' thinking skills. Efforts were made to (1) define requisite thinking competencies, (2) explore measurement of thinking competencies, and (3) make recommendations accordingly. Preliminary findings are reported. (TE)

Sociolinguistic analysis of the ways children and teachers interact verbally may provide insight into why minority children often have difficulty in school. Examples of a classroom discussion cycle are listed and discussed. (DF)

Problem-solving, the most complex and useful form of intellectual activity, is a creative and productive process. Programs that develop problem-solving, therefore, are valuable. A plan for implementing process education in which such programs are incorporated is described. (Author/RK)

This study is a major addition to the few previous investigations of the association between number of years of education and information retention and acquisition by adults both after few and after many years beyond the close of formal schooling. (Editor)