Three approaches to teaching university-level creative problem-solving skills are described. (BD)

The social processes which limit the use of direct perceptual experience and the way in which they affect communication between two individuals who seek to resolve problems together are explained. A model designed to bring direct experience into balance with social structures as a perceptual resource for partners in the problem solving process is…

The authors propose a model of a family community school using the immediate neighborhood as the locus of activity and the school as a problem solving center where individuals of all ages and families of all kinds join together, using their own resources with others to solve everyday educational and social problems for mutual benefit. (Author)

Word problems as used within the culture of mathematics education often promote a suspension of sense making by the students. In the papers in this issue, an alternative conceptualization of word problems is proposed that calls for mathematical modelling that takes real world knowledge into account. (SLD)

Assessed stressful life events and psychological symptoms of 211 children and young adolescents and their parents. Findings supported a model in which daily stressors mediated the relation between major life events and psychological symptoms for family members. (RJC)

At an urban, predominantly African American middle school, the authors addressed parents' concerns (adolescent development, self-esteem, family communication, behavior management, peer pressure, sexuality, and substance abuse) through a series of six Saturday workshops. Parents were randomly assigned to one of three models: directive,…

Two experiments, one measuring eye fixations of 38 undergraduates and the other assessing memory of 37 undergraduates, provide evidence that unsuccessful problem solvers are more likely to comprehend by direct translation and that successful word problem solvers are more likely to build a problem model. (SLD)

Explanations for problems in mathematics are offered, and examples that may lead to a better understanding of problems in mathematics are discussed. Examples include the developmental, dyscalculia, dyspedagogia, behaviorist, medical, psychoanalytic, cultural, curricular, social, transactional, moral, and eclectic models. A case study exemplifies…

Develops a contingency model for managing a variety of corporate crises. Views crisis management as an information-processing situation and organizations that must cope with crisis as information-processing systems. Attempts to fit appropriate information-processing mechanisms to different categories of crises. (PRA)

Introduces design, integrated with systems thinking, as a necessary if not sufficient means for meeting the challenge of how to create or recreate organizations and institutions. The limits of problem-solving strategies when applied to complex organizational change, the designer's role, and the creative process of design are discussed. (Contains…

The narratives of more than 300 qualitative researchers about problems and solutions attempted during research were collected and analyzed to develop three successive descriptive-interpretive frameworks for understanding researchers' lived experiences during the shift from single to multiple research paradigms. The need for more reflective…

Despite student interest, the heart is often a poorly understood topic in biology. To help students understand this vital organ's physiology, the author created this investigation activity involving the mammalian heart and its role in the circulatory system. Students design, build, and demonstrate working artificial "hearts" to exhibit what they…

There is no agreement about the robustness of intuitive representations of the circulatory system and their susceptibility to change by instruction. In this paper, we analyse to what extent students with varying degrees of biology instruction and different ages (High School Health Science and Social Science students and first and final year…

This study is a secondary analysis of surveys collected from school social workers in Illinois. Workers were originally surveyed about the most important student problems they confront in their schools and their preferred targets of intervention (individual, small group, family) to address those problems. Drawing on related conceptual work, the…

This article examines techniques for holding youth in residential care accountable for their behavior. Based on the use of trauma treatment theory, the authors believe that holding one accountable can actually be conceptualized and put into practice as a nurturing operation. For traumatized individuals, more traditional approaches to…