Self-directed student learning begins with self-directed educators. Teachers in Greenville, North Carolina, are training in the Habits of Mind, a series of thinking behaviors that support self-directed learning by helping students successfully tackle complex problems. The authors outline key instructional strategies that have grown from these…

Democracy is a most accepted form of government system and has a great importance for citizens by allowing them equal and active participation in common life. As its development and characteristics are important for all citizens of a country, each democratic country puts much emphasis on democracy education in its educational curricula. In recent…

Based on data from eleven thousand faculty members, this study shows that general education courses place greater emphasis on developing intellectual skills, personal and social responsibility, deep approaches to learning, and diverse interactions. In contrast, other courses emphasize practical skills and are linked with greater levels of…

Transitional situations, such as those experienced by work study students, may create cognitive difficulties by requiring people to simultaneously use both a learning and a use logic. To examine this phenomenon, a problem solving task (electrical schemata of a washing machine) was administered to 43 full time students and 51 work study students…

The Career and Life Management Program was prescribed within the Secondary Education in Alberta policy statement as a core course for senior high school students to provide students with opportunities to develop and practice communicating and thinking skills in situations that will help them to build confidence in their ability to cope with the…

Ego development is an implicit aim of higher education and can be one of its most significant results, according to R. P. Weathersby. There are several developmental stages, each having characteristics to describe personality traits, style of behavior, conscious preoccupations, and ways of thinking. From lowest level to highest, the stages are:…

Science and social studies have much to offer to all learners--including those with disabilities. However, instruction in these subjects has often been overlooked in the quest to better understand and improve leaning in English/language arts and mathematics. As we demonstrate in this paper, science and social studies help students attain skills,…

This study examined the specific words that college faculty in different disciplines use to convey goals for students using data from 1986-87 interviews with 62 faculty members teaching introductory colleges and a 1988-89 survey of 2105 faculty which established a listing of over 6000 goal statements. Goal statements were examined in order to…

Much criticism is being leveled today at the teaching profession, both for failure to provide students with high levels of cognitive functioning, and for failure to apply careful and systematic thinking to the execution of the many demanding instructional tasks required of the teacher's role. A special pilot study tested the effects of a…

Argues that critical thinking is best learned where fellow students respond and react as well as replicate and evaluate. Suggests methods and techniques for doing critical thinking. Discusses thesis formulation, concept application, judgments and conclusions, cause and effect relationships, criteria identification, structure and function,…