This integrative text spotlights what educators need to know about children's cognitive development across grade levels (PreK-12) and content areas. The book provides a concise introduction to developmental neuroscience and theories of learning. Chapters on general cognitive abilities probe such crucial questions as what children are capable of…

Knowledge of scientific models and their uses is a concept that has become a key benchmark in many of the science standards of the past 30 years, including the proposed Next Generation Science Standards. Knowledge of models is linked to other important nature of science concepts such as theory change which are also rising in prominence in newer…

In this paper, I discuss the current state of theorising about dual processes in adult performance on reasoning and decision making tasks, in which Type 1 intuitive processing is distinguished from Type 2 reflective thinking. I show that there are many types of theory some of which distinguish modes rather than types of thinking and that…

Starting from the observation that small children can count more objects than numbers--a phenomenon that I am calling the "lifeworld dependency of cognition"--and an analysis of finger calculation, the paper shows how learning can be explained as the development of cognitive systems. Parts of those systems are not only an individual's different…

The developmental psychology of mathematical thinking and the clinical interview method can make major contributions to education by transforming the process of formative assessment--the attempt to use information concerning student performance, knowledge, learning potential, and motivation to inform instruction. The clinical interview is a…

Though it is being widely argued that expanding young people's capacity to learn is a viable and desirable goal of education, it it not always clear what this means, how it is to be achieved, and how the effectiveness of interventions is to be assessed. It is argued that the capacity to learn should be interpreted as a portmanteau term that…

This paper is a refinement of a model of conceptual learning and development presented initially as the Presidential Address to Division 15, Educational Psychology, of the American Psychological Association in September 1971 at Washington, D.C. Thus it supersedes the initial formulation in explicitness and detail. This paper explains the nature of…

Identifies and discusses a change in the theoretical bases of contemporary psychologists' views of infant development: the replacement of the constructs of energy, drive, and motive with cognitive constructs. (CM)

Vygotsky (1978) presented ideas influential to the "constructivist" approach to education. This approach included the "zone of proximal development," and defined what is essential for student's development of a higher cognitive ability in order to become self-motivated learners. His theory also directly relates to the research regarding the…

Reviews two major theories of cognitive development based on Perry's Developmental Process and the Wellesley Study, and offers examples and suggestions for their application in academic library instruction. Learning strategies that respond to differences in levels of cognitive abilities are described, and the role of faculty who request…

Part of the monthly Saturday Review supplement, "Education in America," sponsored by the Charles F. Kettering Foundation.

Based on the idea that mastery of reading is a complex problem to be solved by a child, the author discusses the learning-to-read process as a series of discoveries of solutions to subproblems, all of which are then ordered into a total system. As a child's attempted solutions approximate more closely the reality of each aspect of the reading…

Discusses and refutes Novak's arguments against Piaget's theory of intellectual development in favor of Ausubel's theory of meaningful verbal learning. (GA)

Investigates the prevalence of developmental cognitive differences among college students and the relation of scores on cognitive tests to an objective form of assessment of achievement, namely, the final grade in a conventional physics course. (GA)