Introduces the articles in the theme issue, exploring their contribution to the understanding of college students' stages of intellectual development and how college instruction should respond. (EV)

Introduces William Perry's work on the stages of intellectual and ethical development and asserts the importance of professors linking students' intellectual development with their pedagogy. (EV)

As a result of the ideas of a university sophomore and senior and their dissatisfaction with the traditional lecture and exam format, George Washington University (Washington, D.C.) offers an experimental undergraduate course entitled "Confrontation and the Development of the Individual Mind." The English department course is taught by…

Asserts the importance of developing in students an intrinsic valuing of intellectual activities as the firmest basis for sustaining intellectual motivation. Discusses how to develop in students an understanding of what it means to learn and to know, including a movement up the levels of epistemological understanding from realist to evaluativist.…

Explores the tension between passive and active learning among master's degree students working on their teaching certificate in science. Emphasizes the developmental nature of learning and that constructionist pedagogies need to be clearly integrated in university courses, especially those focused on teaching. (EV)

Assessed Kolb learning styles and neo-Piagetian development levels of students who then completed a lecture/lab course with either inquiry or expository instructional methods. The predicted interaction between Kolb's thinking/feeling learning dimension and instructional method was not found, while thinking/feeling dimension and developmental level…

The questioning behavior of college faculty is descriptively analyzed. The cognitive levels of questioning patterns of professors are described and the differences in these levels and patterns are examined across the variables of institution size (small or large), sector (public or private), course level (beginning or advanced), and discipline…

This article discusses William G. Perry's model of intellectual development, which posits that college students move through four phases of understanding their relationship to knowledge: dualism (knowledge as received truth), multiplicity (knowledge as opinion), relativism (knowledge as relativistic), and commitment in relativism. Specific…

A study used the Coursework Cluster Analysis Model to identify college courses associated with gains in student learning, then sought faculty perceptions about methods for teaching and assessing those abilities. Teacher perceptions corroborated the statistical analysis and improved understanding of how student assessment, individual courses, and…

Honors programs are reviewed that use diversity in presentation, approach, and educational context to foster intellectual development. They individualize instruction and encourage students both to form partnerships in learning and to develop their own strategies for integrating information. (MSE)

The formal development of critical thinking is discussed, and guidance is provided to help faculty insure that critical thinking becomes an integral part of learning. Theory, research, teaching practice, and college programs pertinent to the development and role of critical thinking are presented in order to show how educators have shaped…

The essentials of Piaget's theory and its application to teaching at the college level are described as part of the Learning and Evaluation Service workshop, Teaching Students to Reason, offered at Michigan State University. Objectives are to enable the teacher to: (1) diagnose and classify reasoning patterns of students; (2) evaluate current…

An approach to developing college students' critical thinking skills, designed for freshman composition students but adaptable for other disciplines, is outlined. Components include: establishing bounds of analysis; using bibliography to foster scholarship; capitalizing on emotional response; learning the genre to be analyzed by writing in it;…

This digest summarizes a larger document of the same title which takes the position that because American democracy is founded on the premise that citizens need to engage in free and open discussion of opposing points of view, it is important that intellectual conflict become part of college instruction. It suggests several ways in which…

The thesis of this book is that intellectual conflict is an important and powerful instructional tool which should become part of day-to-day student life in colleges and universities. Properly structured academic controversy results in increased achievement, better problem-solving and decision-making skills, more positive interpersonal skills, and…