For the past five years, our students have been passing less and less time preparing for lectures and exams. To encourage them to do more exercises, a pedagogical activity was offered outside the classroom. With the goal of making students more active during the problem-solving process, an innovative online environment, Sphinx, was developed.…

Despite plenty of practice, many students find interpreting and solving word-problems difficult. How can teachers work with students so that they learn to make appropriate sense (or should it be "inappropriate sense"?) of word-problems? One way to investigate how students make sense of word-problems is to ask them to write some of their own. The…

The paper examined the possibility of finding out if improvements in students' problem solving performance in simultaneous linear equation will be recorded with the use of procedural and conceptual learning strategies and in addition to find out which of the strategies will be more effective. The study adopted a pretest, post test control group…

This paper examines the novel problem solving actions of a pair of college students. The analysis highlights the role of the solvers' inferential processes including abductions, deductions, and inductions as structuring resources that contribute to both their understanding of the problems they face and the emerging novelty that constitutes their…

This book addresses the subject of learning mathematics with an understanding that shares a consensus about the essential features of classrooms for understanding mathematics. By describing the essential features of classrooms that support students' mathematical understanding and by providing pictures of several classrooms that exhibit these…

The Empowering Learners Project, a collaborative effort of five United Way agencies in the St. Paul (Minnesota) area, produced this manual to outline some strategies for assisting English-as-a-Second-Language learners in becoming effective learners and critical thinkers. Ideas in the manual came from project agencies and research in critical…

This study investigated the effects of interactive video (IVD) instruction with embedded rules (production system rules) and practice with feedback on learners' academic achievement and perceived self efficacy in the domain of procedural knowledge for watching professional football. Subjects were 71 female volunteers from undergraduate education…

This paper reports a study designed to examine the types of behaviors students exhibit while conducting laboratory activities and assess the effectiveness of strategies students employ. The sample was 42 students enrolled in a physics lab section at a single university. Three types of data were collected: (1) observational data during the lab…

An innovative curriculum called the "Regional Center Alternative Pathway," recently adopted by the Northwest Center for Medical Education (part of Indiana University's School of Medicine), is presented. The curriculum combines the traditional structure's didactic approach with a new problem-based tutorial curriculum. In this curriculum…

This study, involving 65 undergraduates at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta); explores a scheme for representing problem-solving knowledge and predicting transfer as a function of problem-solving subgoals acquired from examples. A subgoal is an unknown entity (numerical or conceptual) that needs to be found in order to achieve a higher…

This paper presents a model for systematic instructional design that includes mental model analysis together with the procedures used in developing computer-based instructional materials in the area of statistical hypothesis testing. The instructional design model is based on the premise that the objective for learning is to achieve expert-like…

This guide was designed to provide classroom-level applications that can be utilized in the education of students in kindergarten through grade six. The purpose of the guide is to develop an educational process with a focus on technology education and problem solving skills that enhances the curriculum, instills in students an awareness of the…

The instructional media created by microcomputers interconnected by modems to form long-distance networks present some powerful new opportunities for education. While other uses of computers in education have been built on conventional instructional models of classroom interaction, instructional electronic networks facilitate a wider use of…

A study of the effects of the Instrumental Enrichment cognitive intervention program with 41 severely hearing impaired secondary school students was conducted. Experimental and control groups were compared in regard to general cognitive functioning, problem-solving strategies, reading comprehension, and mathematics. Experimental subjects were…

Following some years of eclipse by the basics, imparting thinking ability to students is once again emerging as the primary goal of public education. How to teach thinking skills, is, however, subject to question. For example, not only is the domain of the higher order skills broad and imprecisely specified, there is also considerable naivete in…