Evaluation results are reported for the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory's Thinking and Reasoning Program, designed to develop analytic thinking and problem-solving skills in young children in multicultural classroom settings. Results are based on a pilot test of the program conducted during the 1974-75 school year. Mastery activities,…

Deals with strategies for the fostering of the question-asking capabilities of chemistry students through the use of active, real-world problem-solving and decision-making processes. Suggests that appropriate teaching strategies do facilitate the students' question-asking abilities, and strengthen their confidence in applying them to…

A general model for a quantitative description of individual growth in learning was developed. Published data in a variety of areas and data on learning sequences in a classroom were processed through the model. Findings suggest that the general growth model governs growth phenomena. (Author/RD)

Describes a computer-assisted, interdisciplinary course in decision making developed to promote student participation and critical thinking. Students participate in 20 interactive exercises that utilize and illustrate psychological and economic concepts. Follow-up activities include receiving background information, group discussions, text…

Describes the Systems Thinking and Curriculum Innovation (STACI) Project, which is examining the impact of a technology-based curriculum innovation on teaching and learning outcomes in high school science and social studies. Systems thinking is discussed, simulation-modeling software is described, and implications for technology in educational…

Examines the relationship between teaching content or knowledge, and teaching the skills of critical thinking and problem solving. Presents key strategies to help students understand and develop critical thinking skills. Recommends use of the developmental lesson and provides several model lessons. (LS)

Divided into two parts, this article analyzes why some pupils feel reserve about instantaneous velocities and instantaneous flows. The second part relates reactions of pupils facing a problem that implicates the instantaneous rate of change. Describes some characteristics of this problem that enables the authors to explain its instructional…

Describes a study that examined problem-solving strategies selected by African-American preschool students with differing cognitive styles using LOGO computer software. Highlights include spatial development, minority performance and cross-cultural differences in cognitive style, and differences in field-dependent/field-independent children in…

Describes an activity that demonstrates a teaching-learning model in which students ask yes or no questions to determine an unknown number on a number line. Provides a sequence of five steps to carry out the activity and suggestions for extending and expanding the activity for different grade levels. (MDH)

Investigated development of ability to recognize, anticipate, and plan the replay of recorded action sequences. Effects of an educational intervention on this ability were evaluated for two- to five-year olds. Results suggest that representational competence is a teachable concept and that a complex mediating structure allows children to…

Focuses on the implementation and development of a pioneering action research project in a Sino-British English program. The article describes the project's goal to introduce the notion of action research into China, to encourage reflective teaching and classroom research among trainee teachers, and to bridge the theories studied with classroom…

A major challenge for education and educational research is to build on our present understanding of learning for designing environments for education that are conducive to fostering in students self-regulatory and cooperative learning skills, transferable knowledge, and a disposition toward competent thinking and problem solving. Taking into…

This paper describes a study that addressed problems related to the disparity in achievement between disadvantaged and nondisadvantaged students. The first part of the study consisted of an analysis of three early intervention programs: the Responsive Early Childhood Education Program, the Reading Recovery program, and the Success for All program.…

External representations have a great impact on what and how students learn. One key manner in which environments can operate upon novices' knowledge is through helping them ground their problem solving in an understanding of the situation embodied by the problem. In this paper, students' difficulties in microeconomics problem solving were…

Because of its ability to record and represent process, the computer can provide a powerful, motivating, and as yet untapped tool for focusing the students' attention directly on their own thought processes and learning through reflection. Properly abstracted and structured, the computational medium can capture the processes by which a novice or…