There is currently much conversation on the issue of the achievement gap as scholars, politicians, and educational leaders continue to grapple with educational inequity and underperformance of students in urban neighborhoods who are mostly Black and Latinx as compared with higher performing students, mostly white, in suburban neighborhoods. This…

The result of a three year state-led collaborative effort, the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards was developed to serve two audiences: for states to upgrade their state social studies standards and for practitioners--local school districts, schools, teachers and curriculum writers--to strengthen…

In 2010, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation's Education Program has established the Deeper Learning Initiative, which focuses on students' development of deeper learning skills (i.e., the mastery of core academic content, critical-thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, communication, and "learn-how-to-learn" skills). Two test…

This 21st Century Skills Map is the result of hundreds of hours of research, development and feedback from educators and business leaders across the nation. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills has issued this map for the core subject of English.

A recent study in Baltimore shows that the inclusion of a structured cognitive skills program in the language arts curriculum significantly improved student verbal performance on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). (MD)

Designed to help stimulate the development of thinking skills in children of varying abilities and to review basic skills at all elementary grade levels, this book contains 153 "ready-to-go" classroom activities. Included are "total-group,""partner," and "individual" activities. Activities in the book are…

These action oriented activity cards dealing with conflict situations are for use with secondary students. The cards are intended to supplement any course dealing with conflict, including U.S. history, sociology, English, literature, economics, area studies, or political science. The cards are organized by color into certain broad categories which…

Designed to help youngsters with real-world learning, and with being a smart consumer, this book focuses on having students participate in decisions facing consumers every day. The book contends that this is the best way to help students think critically and solve problems. Activities in the book require students to make consumer decisions related…

Because language arts processes and related skills depend on thinking processes, teachers should know, use, and guide creative problem-solving processes in their language arts class. Creative problem solving involves a balance of divergent and convergent thought, reflected in the processes of creative and critical thinking. Divergent, or creative,…

This brief guide is designed to help teachers learn how to integrate content and problem solving skills in the social studies curriculum. Problem-solving skills include analyzing an in-depth question/problem, selecting a format for recording information, gathering and recording information, and writing a summary. Materials in the guide include: a…

Addresses the implementation of a constructivist approach to using multimedia technology in two advanced language art classrooms in a public middle school seventh grade class. Discuses the development of management, technical, research, and problem solving skills, and placing final projects on the Web to give students a sense of audience.…

Resources that will help secondary students become more effective problem solvers are provided. The book describes techniques or tools and an overall strategy for solving problems. Throughout the book there are exercises that enable the student to practice the techniques. The first chapter provides an overview of the problem solving process.…

Thinkback is a new instructional process that uses "thinking aloud" strategies developed by Arthur Whimbey and derives its name from the technology of instant video playback. Thinkback is a generalization of techniques described in the program "Problem Solving and Comprehension," which has been used for more than 20 years. The…

This comprehensive field test report describes a 1978 impact evaluation of the 3-program "Collecting Information" cluster of ThinkAbout, a series of 60 15-minute instructional television programs for fifth and sixth graders designed to strengthen reasoning skills and review and reinforce language arts, mathematics, and study skills. The…

This report describes a project designed to expand higher order thinking skills in five primary students with disabilities in order to increase problem solving and decision making skills. The project incorporated higher order thinking skills into mathematics, science and language arts units, and implemented weekly, cooperative learning techniques…