Examined whether the use of superordinate terms in 206 children's definitions is predictable by relevance theory. Children (ages 5-10) gave definitions for 16 basic-level words and 4 superordinate words from natural kind and artifact semantic domains. Superordinate terms were used more frequently when they supported more inferences. Findings…

Examines changes in the philosophy of science related to changes in scientific knowledge. Discusses the nature of philosophy, ambiguity in the use of science, art and science, political ethics and science, logical thought, science in social reality, links to industrial society, and values and goals for science teaching. (LZ)

Explains the importance of competence in the use of informal logic for physical education and educational sport teachers/managers. The article discusses historical background, critical thinking as applied to managerial roles, the need to think clearly, and aspects of critical thinking, argument development, ambiguity, acceptable and unacceptable…

This article details an approach to teaching one step in a mathematics word-problem-solving strategy, that of organizing the facts. A lesson plan is offered which involves directed instruction and supervised practice in five strategies for organizing facts. (DB)

A discussion of the Socratic method for college-level teaching looks at the three primary components of the method (systematic questioning, inductive reasoning, and universal definitions) and several additional relevant elements, including the testing of hypotheses and use of background information. One teacher's classroom techniques are…

Presents literature-based elementary mathematics activities for the primary and intermediate grades. The activites are adapted from "Math and Literature, K-3," by the author of this article. (SM)

Conversations of British 7-year olds and Canadian 11-year olds were analyzed to establish 3 criteria for assessing oracy in classroom situations: ideation (quality of information and its validation); interpersonal (sensitivity of relationships with listeners); and textual (choice and organization of words). Differences between the two groups point…

Presents a matrix for writing business memos and describes how it helps students organize memos that are logically complete, internally consistent, and coherent. (SR)

Illustrates the game-theory concept of a dominant strategy using the MTV-network game show "Singled Out." Describes how the game show works and why this makes it attractive as an example of strategic behavior. Presents examples of how the show is used in class. (DSK)

Shows how the logical framework may be used to provide a structure for gender mainstreaming within organizations. Experiences of Makere University, Uganda, show that the logical framework can be used for planning and for monitoring progress during implementation. (SLD)

Reports on two studies that use new tasks to compare English children's use of strategies that reverse the order of addends in solving addition problems. Shows that knowledge of commutativity among young children is widespread, but does not establish a direct link between this knowledge and children's choice of addition strategies. (DSK)

Discusses differences between young peoples' perspectives of the social world and those offered by social science. Summarizes the economic thinking of young people and argues that economics presents students with an important perspective for social analysis. Provides three "economic mysteries" that introduce economic principles into the classroom.…

Noveck (2001) argued that children even as old as 11 do not reliably endorse a scalar interpretation of weak scalar terms ("some", "might", "or") (cf. Braine & Rumain, 1981; Smith, 1980). More recent studies suggest, however, that children's apparent failures may depend on the experimental demands (Papafragou…

We explored how relational complexity and featural distraction, as varied in scene analogy problems, affect children's analogical reasoning performance. Results with 3- and 4-year-olds, 6- and 7-year-olds, 9- to 11-year-olds, and 13- and 14-year-olds indicate that when children can identify the critical structural relations in a scene analogy…

This paper engages with questions of logic and its politics to explore how those of us in early childhood education can become critical consumers of "brain research". The research truths we use to construct classroom practices decide the meanings of our actions, thoughts and feelings and our interactions with children. Following Foucault (1980), I…