This paper argues that introductory interpersonal courses cannot facilitate competent interaction if they fail to take account of the limitations of human consciousness. The paper focuses on Gregory Bateson's communication and learning theory, and explores the problems of being overly conscious of interpersonal interaction. The paper proposes a…

This manual is designed to assist both special and regular educators with mastering the skills for developing quality teacher-made tests consistent with content-oriented instruction. The manual presents tips for constructing both objective and subjective, supply and select test questions--namely, short answer, essay, fill in the blanks or…

A study examined preschoolers' metacognitive self-regulatory behaviors. It was hypothesized that tasks that omitted or greatly decreased verbalization would allow preschool children to exhibit evidence of metacognitive self-regulatory behaviors. Subjects were 20 preschool children, half identified as special needs and half designated as typical…

Some art educators believe that art should be studied for its own intrinsic value, while others believe that art instruction provides instrumental outcomes that are valuable beyond the acquisition of art knowledge and skills per se. This latter group of educators, known as instrumentalists, believe, for example, that the study of art promotes…

Five cooperative learning methods are described with the theories that support them. The five methods are: (1) Group Investigation (GI), developed by S. Sharan and others; (2) Jigsaw, developed by E. Aronson and others; (3) Student Teams Achievement Divisions (STAD), developed by R. E. Slavin and others; (4) Learning Together, developed by D. W.…

Cognitive science research indicates that learning through apprenticeship may be more effective than traditional schooling. The following critical mistakes in traditional schooling are outlined: (1) skills are taught in progressively more difficult steps, neglecting to engage higher-order thinking abilities; (2) a skill is broken down into…

This module on planning skills contains the product development unit in a manufacturing course for grades 10, 11, and 12. The module helps students develop thinking, communication, and problem-solving skills and acquire knowledge relating to creation, retrieval, and use of information found on common project plans. The content outline includes the…

Journal writing on literary topics is an ideal activity in a classroom that emphasizes the transformational role of education, bringing together the creation of meaning between the reader and the text on the one hand, and on the other hand, the creation of expressive or reflexive writing. An activity, in a freshman literature and writing class for…

This commentary contends that Henry J. Perkinson's arguments in "Teachers without Goals, Students without Purposes" (1993) are, on the whole, a failure. This criticism is based on the following points: (1) terms such as "modernism" and "postmodernism" are used without adequate definitions; (2) the book inadequately…

This paper presents a model of scored cognition that incorporates two types of mental models: models of performance (i.e., the criteria for judging performance) and models of scoring (i.e., the procedural scripts for scoring an essay). In Study 1, six novice and five experienced scorers wrote definitions of three levels of a 6-point holistic…

A study investigated where preservice teachers are in their own ability to construct meaning from complex texts and how this is influenced by their views of knowledge. Subjects were 65 elementary education majors, 82 secondary education majors, and 23 physical education majors enrolled in five sections of a reading in the content areas course and…

Cognitive structures concerned with processing information about gender have been called gender schemas. Research about gender schematicity often has involved self-reporting measures of traits. These measures consisted of empirically chosen adjectives that were desirable for both sexes, but judged more typical of females or males. The current…

A study examined how many and what kind of questions appear in elementary science and social studies textbooks and teachers' manuals. Approximately 7500 questions from fourth and fifth grade science and social science textbooks from three major publishers were classified according to the following characteristics: (1) type of cognitive demand; (2)…

In a study of memory use in language comprehension, 84 second grade, 54 sixth grade, and 54 college students produced elaborations on sentences. In a context elaboration, task students put sentences in different contexts, and, in a causal inferencing task, they inferred alternative reasons for events. Language understanding was measured by the…

Knowledge representations and mental models from graphically presented information were investigated for 98 college students with different levels of mathematics experience. The subjects were drawn from a remedial algebra course (n=35), a second semester calculus course (n=35), and a calculus-based statistics course (n=28); they were all exposed…