This study makes use of an action research paradigm to improve primary students' analyzing skills. It was conducted at the San Esteban Elementary School, Region I, Philippines, during the 6-week off campus practice teaching of one of the researchers. Sources of data include a thinking skills checklist, a set of Curriculum Support Materials (CSM),…

In many countries, one aspect of health education, namely child sexual abuse, has become an important issue for teachers in pre-schools, primary schools and high schools to address. In Australia, many states now have mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse by teachers to their Principals then to the police or the Department of Families.…

The research examined how Chinese leaders view the thinking process, what thinking styles they value and how they prefer to think. The methodological framework used quantitative analyses of two thinking styles inventories. The survey included a sample of nearly 300 leaders from a wide representation of industry sectors across China who completed…

Classroom discussion is a frequently used "active learning" strategy; however, a dilemma this strategy produces is what to do about students who are less inclined to volunteer. This study examines an environment which uses cold calling and graded participation to include more students in discussions. The results suggest that despite widespread…

Students sometimes have difficulty in mathematics because they solve problems mechanically, without understanding the ideas represented by their equations. This brief note provides mathematics instructors with ideas for rectifying this fundamental flaw in students' paradigm of problem solving. (Contains 1 footnote.)

This article argues that an important source of the difficulties posed by particular concepts and theories is the narrow range of "types of causal models" with which most learners are familiar. Most learners are familiar with relatively simple styles of causal models, but many concepts and theories in science depend on styles…

In this article we report a 3-yr study of a large-enrollment Cell Biology course focused on developing student skill in scientific reasoning and data interpretation. Specifically, the study tested the hypothesis that converting the role of exams from summative grading devices to formative tools would increase student success in acquiring those…

Biology teachers in introductory and upper level high school courses generally present principles of taxonomy as part of the curriculum. Students learn about classification systems that categorizes species into recognized taxonomic groups based on their degrees of structural divergence or derived ancestral traits. References made, hereafter, to…

Herring in the ocean between Iceland and Norway was one of the largest fish stocks in the world until the fishery crashed in the late 1960s. The catch in 1971 was only 20 thousand metric tons in contrast with the record of 2 million tons in 1966 and the spawning stock declined from 10 million tons to 10 thousand tons in 20 years. After 25 years of…

There are many problems posed by aggressive youth, the harm to victims and the loss of young people into the criminal justice system and penal confinement. Aggression Replacement Training (ART) was developed by Arnold Goldstein and his colleagues as a means of working with aggressive young people to help them learn new, prosocial ways of behaving.…

Education Queensland's New Basics project has extended conceptions of "equity" to incorporate dimensions such as higher order thinking and student control of classroom activity. This requires a critique of the outcomes attained by even high achieving students. It is therefore useful to interrogate professional discourses that shape…

This article presents an example of a versatile multi-solution problem that can be used right across the primary years. The basic problem is: "Noah saw 16 legs go past him into the Ark. How many creatures did he see?" Any even number can be used, although, 2 legs allows only one answer and with 16 legs there are already 14 different…

Children's literature can enhance mathematics lessons by providing a meaningful context, demonstrating that mathematics develops from human experiences and contributes an aesthetic dimension to learning mathematics. Written as a series of real life inspired snapshots of mathematical thinking, "Counting on Frank" (Rod Clement, 1990)…

This investigation addressed the question of how two forms of social cognitive reasoning--epistemic reasoning and adolescent egocentrism--interface with externalizing and internalizing forms of psychopathology during adolescence. Adolescents' epistemic reasoning (i.e., types of belief entitlement, or degree of doubt, held by an individual when…

In this article, the authors talk about the Paideia program of the Asheville Middle School (AMS). Paideia is a Greek word that expresses the idea of nurturing the whole child. The Paideia Program is a systemic school transformation project based on the work of philosopher Mortimer Adler. The authors discuss the principles of the Paideia Program.…