New teachers and those without a strong background in geography tend to neglect "higher level" thinking, including causal explanations and thinking about reasons in primary school geography. This is a problem that training has yet to address effectively, at least in the UK. It could be that children's textbooks may help such teachers…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of gender and grade level on students' logical thinking abilities. A total of 174 sixth, seventh, and eighth-grade students participated in the study. Test of Logical Thinking (TOLT) was administered to determine students' reasoning abilities. A two-way multivariate analysis of variance…

In this article, the author tries to create inspirational experiences for his students through "Backyard Battles," a course he has taught for the last four years through the Institute for Southern Studies at the University of South Carolina. The main purpose of this course is to help students recognize that the primary and secondary sources which…

This paper describes insights on how to promote mathematical reasoning in problem solving based on the mathematical experiences of participants in a long-term study in which the students engaged in strands of well-defined, open-ended mathematical investigations, as a context for research on the development of particular concepts and ways of…

The paper examines the role of critical thinking in an experience-based model of social work education. Within this model, the development of a critical approach to our own understanding of, as well as to existing knowledge about, the world is fundamental for students and educators alike. Critical thinking is defined as more than a rational,…

We present a design for a junior level numerical methods course that focuses on a series of five open-ended projects in applied mathematics. These projects were deliberately designed to present many of the ambiguities and complexities that appear any time we use mathematics in the real world, and so they offered the students a variety of possible…

The use of the Internet to deliver courses at tertiary level is growing steadily, with the Internet being seen as the ideal solution to a range of issues facing educators in the 21st century. However, little is known as how best to use synchronous communication to support students' learning. This paper documents a New Zealand tertiary course…

Purpose: To study the performance of final year medical students, at the end of module assessments, following exposure to a web-based tutorial programme designed to facilitate critical thinking and logical reasoning. Method: Multimedia enhanced web-based tutorials based on patient oriented problems, designed to develop higher cognitive skills in…

The author of this article laments the gap in knowledge that he sees in composition scholarship as it relates to teaching writing students how to be both analytical and subjective within an increasingly complex world. He observes that the theory behind teaching such critical skills often lags teaching practice by decades. Moreover he describes…

Service-learning pedagogy rests on a stool of three legs: service, learning, and reflection. In this field, much has been written on service and learning, but not much has been written specifically about reflection. Given the critical role reflection plays as a bridge between service and learning, the goal of this article is to offer a brief…

Estimation is an important skill for everyday living. Good estimators usually have a sound knowledge of basic facts, understand place value and use a variety of strategies to make their estimates. This paper describes an activity which is designed to provide students with opportunities to practice their rounding strategies with addition and…

Teachers who believe "practice makes perfect" may engage students in repetitive, perhaps timed, computational exercises. If educators teach students to understand the procedures they practice, however, they will not need as much drill and they will have more flexible use of the computations they perform. Three-quarters of a century ago,…

The author recently read a research paper by Padberg (2002), in which the development of understanding associated with decimal fractions was studied. Padberg (2002) outlined the situation that existed in Germany, where students were introduced to decimal fractions in the sixth year of school. He claimed that it was assumed students would have a…

This article discusses William James's notion, propounded in his "Varieties of Religious Experience" (1902), that authentic religious experience should be evidenced in mature moral functioning--"the value of saintliness". Support for this and his other ideas relevant to the intersection of morality and religion was adduced from a review of current…

This article introduces systems thinking and identifies its implications for practice-based learning and improvement. The article defines systems, identifies fundamental aspects of systems thinking, and provides strategies for creating more practice-based learning environments in medical contexts. (Contains 1 table.)