Analogous thinking has been commonly discussed as being an inherent and distinguishing characteristic of human cognition (e.g., Gentner, 2010; Goldstone, Day, & Son, 2010; Holyoak, in press; Rittle-Johnson & Star, in press). Gentner (2003) has argued that as part of the human cognitive toolbox, comparison accompanied by the relational language to…

Wertsch's clarification of Vygotsky's claims about the role of social interaction in the development of children's thinking made an important contribution to educational research. Revisiting that clarification, I suggest that "talk" instead of "speech" best describes Vygotsky's concern with the functional dynamics of dialogue rather than the…

How do children learn math--and why do some children struggle with it? The answers are in "Number Sense and Number Nonsense," a straightforward, reader-friendly book for education professionals and an invaluable multidisciplinary resource for researchers. More than a first-ever research synthesis, this highly accessible book brings math…

Non-determinism is one of the most important, yet abstract, recurring concepts of Computer Science. It plays an important role in Computer Science areas such as formal language theory, computability theory, distributed computing, and operating systems. We conducted a series of studies on the perception of non-determinism. In the current research,…

Students (n = 328) from US and UK universities completed four self-report measures related to intellectual competence: typical intellectual engagement (TIE), openness to experience, self-assessed intelligence (SAI), and learning approaches. Confirmatory data reduction was used to examine the structure of TIE and supported five major factors:…

It is commonly assumed that psychologists studying human reasoning may safely ignore the normative issue of rationality, and that philosophers may analyze rationality without reference to empirical research on actual human reasoning. Presenting five arguments against such a mutually exclusive dichotomy, this paper concludes that although empirical…

A color-blot exercise is described as a way of getting students involved in abstract thinking by a low risk, confidence-building activity. Students are asked to combine poetry and art. (CL)

The difficulty and the beauty of Chinese lies in the simultaneous concreteness and ambiguity of each graph. (Author)

As analytic philosophy shows no sign of being abandoned or superseded in the English-speaking world, the prospects of continued conceptual clarification of nonphilosophical disciplines must be regarded as highly favorable at this point in time. (60 references) (Author/MM)

A review of The Development of the Concept of Space in the Child by Monique Laurendeau and Adrien Pinard. (dS)

A scientific definition of the meaning of human creative thought is pursued. (JD)

This paper raises serious questions about the reliability of the learning pyramid as a guide to retention among students. The pyramid suggests that certain teaching methods are connected with a corresponding hierarchy of student retention. No specific credible research was uncovered to support the pyramid, which is loosely associated with the…

SystemC is a system-level design and simulation language based on C++. We've been using SystemC for computer organization and design projects for the past several years. Because SystemC is embedded in C++ it contains the powerful abstraction mechanisms of C++ not found in traditional hardware description languages, such as support for…