Explores the mathematical practices of three young mathematicians in an extended interview setting. Focuses on the interaction of discovery and verification, the role of conjecture in discovery, and the place of intuition and understanding in research. Indicates an interesting mismatch between how they valued their own guesses and how they reacted…

A discovery-based experiment is developed depending on a "false assumption" that the students mistakenly assume they know the structure of a reaction product and are forced to reconcile observations that are inconsistent with this assumption. This experiment involves the chemistry of azulenes, an interesting class of intensely colored aromatic…

The scientific discovery process comes alive for 70 minority students each year at Uniondale High School in New York where students have won top awards for "in-house" projects. Uniondale High School is in a middle-income school district where over 95% of students are from minority groups. Founded in 2000, the Uniondale High School Research Program…

This qualitative case study presents three novices in urban schools who enacted curricular projects as participants in a university-based professional development program. This experience created an opportunity for practical risk taking, enabling them to consider the consequences of curricular choices in personal terms. Such professional…

When Goldilocks finds three bowls of porridge at different temperatures in the three bears' house, she accurately assesses the situation and comes up with one of the most recognizable lines in children's literature," This porridge is too hot; this porridge is too cold; aahh, this porridge is just right!" Goldilocks' famous line is a perfect…

Educators are busier than ever before. What practitioner has time to add "researcher" to his or her job description? Yet the very complexity of education today mandates that educators become researchers. Educators cannot do their jobs properly unless they become researchers who have the goal of fostering a culture of inquiry throughout the entire…

This article explores the challenges of researching the spirit(ual) when the researcher questions the processes of research and their applicability to a study of spirituality. Must the spirit(ual) be explored with different considerations and with non-traditional approaches because of the nature of what is being studied? The question arises…

Three models have been proposed to account for the relationship between the principle of commutativity and the development of more economical addition strategies, which disregard addend order. In the first and second models, it has been proposed that either discovery or assumption of commutativity is a necessary condition for the invention of…

A TWO DAY RESEARCH CONFERENCE ON "LEARNING BY DISCOVERY" WAS HELD TO--(1) CLARIFY SOME OF THE ISSUES INVOLVED IN LEARNING BY DISCOVERY, (2) REVIEW WHAT IS KNOWN OF THE SUBJECT, AND (3) SUGGEST WAYS OF EXTENDING KNOWLEDGE ABOUT IT. THE 25 PARTICIPANTS WERE REPRESENTATIVES FROM MANY AREAS IN PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION. OBSERVERS FROM GOVERNMENT…

This research was designed to investigate the relationship between a verbal measure of predictive ability and performance on selected science process tasks by prospective elementary school teachers. The vehicle utilized for assessing the comprehension ability was the cloze procedure, with the cloze score being considered as verbal predictive…

A summary of current theoretical work in the area of concept formation is presented with emphasis on the presentation of thinking in theory. Examination of the logic relating thinking to behavior leads to criticism of the tendency to subordinate "behavior" to underlying processes. The difficulties inherent in analyses of this type are that…

This research was based on the assumption that the teaching of broadly generalizable cognitive skills should be a primary goal of education--that students can be taught to be better insight problem solvers outside of school by training in school and that they can be given the skills necessary for efficient discovery learning. The subjects were 116…

The Brooklyn Children's Museum, the world's oldest children's museum, has a new home underground. The museum's teaching collection of artifacts is particularly strong in the areas of ethnology, natural history, and technology. Objects relating to these fields are organized according to the historic physical divisions of fire, air, earth, and…