Noting that sociocultural approaches to cognitive development provide valuable insights into the influences on learning of relationship and cultural variables, this book discusses recent theory and research on the social context of cognitive development. The book takes the view that the social settings in which children live and grow provide both…

The purpose of this research was to describe how self-efficacy affects the development and science achievement of practicing teachers after their participation in a half day long hands-on science lesson provided by the Science on Wheels project. The 42 practicing K-8 teachers were from eight different counties located in a rural mid-eastern state.…

A study was conducted with forty-seven preservice childhood (elementary) education teachers (42 F, 5 M) enrolled in two mathematics methods classes taught by the same instructor to determine the effect of these college students making curriculum materials appropriate for upper elementary students on the preservice teachers' knowledge of…

The Child Welfare League of America is the nation's oldest and largest membership-based child welfare organization committed to engaging people everywhere in promoting the well-being of children, youth, and their families and protecting every child from harm. By publishing a diverse range of views on a wide array of topics, "Children's Voice"…

This action research project report described a program for enhancing thinking skills to improve the problem-solving and decision making of primary school students. Participating were 25 second and 22 third graders in regular education classrooms, but including students with special needs, located in two small middle class communities in central…

Cross-national studies in mathematics have consistently reported that U.S. students do not perform as well as Asian students on tasks requiring the application of mathematical knowledge and skills routinely learned in school. Recent studies have shown, however, that for tasks assessing relatively novel and complex problem solving, performance…

Based on the premise that the fairy tale genre can be effectively used as the content base for teaching reading, writing, and thinking skills and processes, this book offers educators ideas and techniques that promote multiple intelligences, critical thinking, creative problem solving, and problem- and product-based learning. Drawing on Bloom's…

The Interdisciplinary Assessment Model was created out of the need for improved assessment of learning, especially the assessment of critical thinking and problem solving. Development of the model required establishing a common language for library media specialists to cover various curriculum areas, a comparison of current state standards for…

Teaching the Internet is hard because the technology keeps changing, the system is complex, the environment is relatively unstable, and it is hard to know how much one needs to know in order to successfully use the Internet. The Internet is a pseudo-complex knowledge domain--the "rules" vary, and it is hard to tell which are the…

This study investigates the fate of claims made by middle school science students working in collaborative groups in a multicultural urban classroom and the concomitant effects on engagement and understanding. Given problems of a complex and open-ended nature in a learning community setting, students were challenged to establish group positions…

Modeling in all its forms (two-dimensional, three-dimensional, mathematical, and computer) is an essential feature of designing and making. This paper describes how 10 untutored technology education students in grade 7 used three-dimensional modeling while designing and making a solution to a technological problem. This paper is part of a larger…

This volume is the flagship volume in a series on cognitive strategy instruction. While strategies instruction is particularly appropriate for the learning disabled, it is also very useful for normal learners, especially inner city and minority children. The series focuses on conveying strategies instruction methods for use with these children.…

This study explored the collaborative production of mathematical knowledge during computer-mediated learning activities. In particular, it focused on opportunities for undergraduate students from a local university to collaborate with elementary-aged at-risk children on commercially available computer games in an urban after-school club. Two types…

The knowledge that students bring to the classroom has been a well-studied domain. The types of knowledge studied have included content knowledge as well as epistemological beliefs that students hold. This study focuses specifically on preservice elementary education students' understanding of science and science learning as a meaning-making…

This report contains papers from the Nordic Conference on Mathematics Teaching (NORMA-94). The first three papers are plenary talks aimed at giving the participants an opportunity to form a coherent view of the new theories of learning. The themes of the paper sessions addressed a variety of topics on different levels from elementary school to…