Presents a series of lessons that extend the concrete experiences many elementary students have had with attribute blocks to provide middle school students with informal opportunities to explore the concepts and properties of relations and functions. (DDR)

Details six activities that utilize data contained in a telephone book. Topics include data display, fractional numeracy, random art, estimation, and probability. Contains a summary and extension activities, some of which focus on permutations and combinations. (DDR)

Describes a study focusing on student self-assessment and self-grading of examinations that test higher-order cognitive skills. The study supposed that by evaluating their own performance, students could not only enhance academic strengths and reduce weaknesses but also learn material in greater depth and further develop critical thinking skills.…

Evaluation of a sequenced inquiry learning task with 20 normally achieving junior high students, 18 students with learning disabilities (LD), and 16 with mild mental retardation (MR) found 75 percent of the normal, 50 percent of the LD, but none of the MR students made the correct induction. LD and MR students were less likely to answer…

Examines a literature and reading research project involving an English education professor, a middle-school teacher, and her gifted seventh-grade students. Suggests that the class's homogeneity was a deterrent in the learning process and that students need more opportunities for independent and group research that requires extensive problem…

The focus of this study was on the effects of relevance in instructional context and reasoning complexity on mathematics problem solving achievement, transfer, and attitude for fifth graders. Results suggest that rich mathematical instructional contexts best support mathematics problem-solving, but simple, decontextualized instruction yields the…

Examined effects of self-regulatory teaching approach in a computer context on mathematics learning of at-risk preschoolers. Found that computer-based contexts provided at-risk children with an effective context for learning mathematics and that enhancing that context with a self-regulatory teaching emphasis resulted in significantly increased…

This study reports on the development and psychometric properties of a new 87-item Mathematics Information Processing Scale that explores learning strategies, metacognitive problem-solving skills, and attentional deployment. Results with 340 college students support the use of the instrument, for which factor analysis identified five theoretically…

A study compared response strategies and error patterns of 272 college freshmen on chemistry test items in multiple choice and constructed response formats. Analysis of test data indicated no significant difference in solution strategies used or types of errors committed across test formats. However, interviews with 21 participants revealed…

A study investigated the problem-solving skills and cognitive and learning styles of clinical decision making of 40 pharmacy clerkship students using a computer program. Results showed similarities in temperament, learning styles, information-processing modes, problem-solving strategies, and critical-thinking strengths, providing a profile of…

Describes a program where teams of fifth graders and high school junior and senior physics students work together to explore physical science principles and create a student-constructed exploratorium. Incorporates and synthesizes scientific inquiry, hands-on activities, and creative and critical problem-solving approaches in a motivating and fun…

Examined the effects of a 4-week interdisciplinary unit on middle school students' problem-solving ability. Subjects, 459 students in 4 Midwestern school districts, were taught by 6 teams of teachers. Pre- and posttest results indicated that students identified as formal operational thinkers made significant gains in their problem-solving ability,…

This paper examines nine school-based peer mediation and conflict resolution projects supported by four state health departments, describing differences in targeted students, project consultants, teacher and student training, teaching methods, curriculum content, mediation format, complementary strategies, project cost, and project evaluation. (SM)

Investigates whether exposure to discourse elements affects idea production in novice writers. Results indicate that students given discourse prompts generated significantly more ideas than those given purely motivational prompts and that they spent more time generating ideas, suggesting that instruction in discourse elements may prove beneficial.…

Reports on a study examining the power of the open classroom meeting. Participants indicated that open meetings increased the ability of students to relate to others, to listen, to communicate feelings, and to solve problems. Significant implications for the role of the school counselor in such meetings are explored. (RJM)