Using tests to reform education is not a new concept. National and state education policies reflect confidence in the power of assessment to encourage school improvement. New understandings of the nature and context of student learning are shifting the movement away from traditional multiple-choice tests to alternative assessments. The emphasis is…

Children begin school with the ability to use their informal and implicit conceptual knowledge to guide their problem solving, but shift to the use of superficial strategies in their attempts to solve word problems as they progress through school. This paper describes a study designed to investigate the effects of an instructional sequence that…

Student learning is the bottom line for nearly all efforts to establish a national test system. Major efforts in this area are summarized in this paper. The various efforts seem to move ahead independently, but some common ideas include: (1) creating a national assessment system rather than a single test; (2) developing more than multiple-choice…

This guide offers a framework for making sound decisions among the range of available choices to maximize the educational opportunities of integrated students with disabilities. The framework permits programs to be classified according to their approaches to intervention and general characteristics. A planning process is presented for use in…

The Cognitive Education Project centered at the University of Alberta undertook a 3-year longitudinal evaluation of two cognitive education programs aimed at teaching thinking skills. The critical difference between the two experimental programs was that one, Feuerstein's Instrumental Enrichment (IE) method was taught out of curricular content,…

The Ocean Drilling Project brings together scientists and governments from 20 countries to explore the earth's structure and history as it is revealed beneath the oceans' basins. Scientific expeditions examine rock and sediment cores obtained from the ocean floor to learn about the earth's basic processes. The series of activities in this…

Compiled to assist advisors at Vincennes University (VU), a two-year college in Indiana, as well as high school counselors and prospective students, this book provides information on placement at VU and entry-level skills needed for success in specific programs, majors, or courses. A brief introduction describes the objectives of the skills guide…

This monograph is written to be used by school personnel and is a compilation of many ideas. The first chapter discusses the two key ingredients that school districts must consider to promote restructuring: leadership and teacher participation. Eight steps in the process and planning of restructuring are listed. As schools begin the process of…

The Threshold Project focuses on the language and learning difficulties that children in Southern African schools experience when they change from their mother tongue to English as a medium of instruction in their fifth year of schooling. This report discusses Threshold Project research relating to the nature of pupils' cognitive capacities and…

A 4-year program of naturalistic research on science teaching and learning was conducted in Australia. This program comprised a project entitled Teaching and Learning Science in Schools (TLSS), which ran from 1987-89, and a year of follow-up studies in which some of the major findings from the project were explored further. Participants included 5…

This Missouri Vocational Instructional Management System module offers a description of both instructional and cognitive strategies for special needs students and suggestions for their use in a variety of classrooms. Fourteen definitions, 13 frequently asked questions, 5 resources, and 21 references are included. The following questions are…

Early results are reported for an effort to use a reasoning-based mathematics program in the primary classroom. In the preschool years, children develop knowledge about quantities of material, referred to as protoquantitative reasoning. Integrating counting with the protoquantitative schemas seems to occur as early as 4 years of age. Drawing on…

Two programs in which biliteracy is being actively developed among immigrant groups are examined within the framework of nine continua of biliteracy. One program is an adult English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) class for Cambodian refugee women, taught by a young Cambodian woman. It is assumed that the teacher and students, as members of an urban…

In order to take into account in a more productive, effective manner children's prior science knowledge in the development of science curricula and in the teaching of science, it is important "to know how to explore it, to know about its nature, and to consider the various ways it may, or may not be modified" (Gilbert, Osborne, and Fensham, 1982).…

This monograph describes the origins of the learning cycle, related research, and how future research might be conducted to further the understanding of theories of instruction. A wide range of information is synthesized, producing a coherent framework for better understanding the theory of the learning cycle. The monograph identifies various…