Focuses on the issue of interdisciplinary curriculum, discussing the differences between integrated and interdisciplinary, essential terminology, disciplines of knowledge, levels of curriculum integration, and benefits of interdisciplinary curriculum. Introduces this special issue of "Music Educators Journal." (CMK)

This article describes the "Thinking Actively in a Social Context" (TASC) strategy of problem solving and reports on a study that demonstrated its effectiveness with 2 groups of 10 students (ages 7 and 8). TASC uses cooperative learning and emphasizes positive self-concept, the development of an internal locus of control, and use of real-life…

Examines the processes of science focusing on the higher-order skills and the role that relevance may play in their acquisition. Argues that an open inquiry style of instruction appears best suited to stimulating the learning of process skills because it allows students to pursue problems of genuine relevance. Contains 26 references. (JRH)

Explores the effects of an integrated video media curriculum enhancement on students' achievement and attitudes in a high school chemistry course. Findings reveal significantly higher achievement scores for students who experienced the course enhanced with integrated video media. Students with high levels of logical thinking ability benefited most…

This study examined the interaction effect of teachers' mathematics preparation and the thinking level of mathematics problems on student performance. Achievement scores of students whose teachers differed on level of mathematics preparation indicated that students performed better on higher level thinking tasks when teachers had advanced…

This study is fourth in a series demonstrating that achievement tests are multidimensional and that using subscores from national surveys can enhance test validity and usefulness. It extends the analyses of science achievement data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS: 88) through grade 12. (SLD)

Examines whether or not elementary students could learn rational thinking skills in a short-term, developmental guidance program. Fourth-grade students (N=95) were exposed to four 30-minute guidance lessons. Results indicate that the lessons produced robust changes in students' endorsement of rational statements. (RJM)

Four students (ages 8-11) with mild mental retardation used an animated tutorial computer program to learn mathematical problem solving. Results indicated that all students obtained significant gains from pretest to posttest and had positive attitudes toward computers after training. Transfer of the problem-solving skills to paper-and-pencil…

Presents to second graders the concept of an n-gon, characterized by a commutative diagram which is composed of four ways of judging a given figure. Observes that some children gave persuading arguments containing a critical idea and the concept formation corresponding to a structure-preserved transformation in the diagram. (AIM)

Describes a project combining precalculus and transition mathematics students focusing on popcorn by comparing popping ratios of different brands of popcorn and finding what size box could hold the most popped corn. Project design required group effort and cooperation. Students exhibited growth of positive attitudes toward the study of mathematics…

Graphs from media sources and questions developed from them can be used in the middle school mathematics classroom. Graphs depict storage temperature on a milk carton; air pressure measurements on a package of shock absorbers; sleep-wake patterns of an infant; a dog's breathing patterns; and the angle, velocity, and radius of a leaning bicyclist…

Presents two ancient problems, trisecting any angle and dividing a circle into any number of equal parts. Illustrates how to use these problems to prompt students to think broadly and creatively about problems instead of letting the apparent boundaries of the problem limit their thoughts. Combines three-dimensional solutions to the problems to…

This study compared effectiveness of either a concrete-representational-abstract (CRA) or a representational-abstract (RA) instructional sequence in teaching fraction concepts to 50 middle school students with mathematics disabilities. On all achievement measures, students in the CRA group had overall higher mean scores than did students in the RA…

Describes how improving mathematical arguments improves classroom discourse through a classroom activity. (YDS)

Describes a professional development project to increase teachers' understanding of proportional reasoning, the thinking patterns associated with proportional reasoning, and the applications of proportional reasoning across the middle-grades curriculum. (YDS)