Describes an Israeli reading program for disadvantaged adolescents based on verbal exercises using informative, literary, and speculative texts to improve their reading comprehension and cognitive functions. (HOD)

We examine eight cases of argumentation in relation to a proportional reasoning task--the "Paint" task--in which the "constant sum" strategy was a significant factor. Our analysis of argument follows Toulmin's (1958) approach and in the discourse we trace factors which seem to facilitate changes in argument. We find that the arguments of "constant…

This paper reports on methods of students' justifications of their solution to a problem in the area of combinatorics. From the analysis of the problem solving of 150 students in a variety of settings from high-school to graduate study, four major forms of reasoning evolved: (1) Justification by Cases, (2) Inductive Argument, (3) Elimination…

This study explored the moral reasoning and scientific argumentation skills of 31 gifted Finnish adolescents participating in a science program at the University of Helsinki. Students were given the Defining Issues Test (DIT) to determine their level of moral reasoning and the Raven test to evaluate their scientific reasoning. The argumentation…

This book shows students how to increase their power to analyze problems and comprehend what they read. First it outlines and illustrates methods that good problem solvers use in attacking complex ideas, then it provides practice in applying these methods to a variety of comprehension and reasoning questions. The "Whimbey Method" of teaching…

Revised version of a lecture presented to a workshop of the Commission of German Scholars of Poland and Germany, Warsaw, Poland, December 4, 1972. (DD)

Extends P. E. Jonson's studies of physics learning by analyzing, on the basis of a 12-student control group, 24 high-school students' word associations, aptitude scores, and achievement results during instruction. Indicated a positive relationship between problem-solving ability and meaningful concept formation. (CC)

Induction refers to categorizing sensory experience and substitution to interchanging similar objects. If similar items are functionally identical and near the focus of attention at nearly the same time, similarity impedes learning (interference). If either condition is not fulfilled, similarity aids learning (transfer). (DD)

Contains a systems analysis of the Mankind-Education System and a block-diagram model of this system. (DD)

Report offers several working definitions of the process of critical thinking, then describes several ERIC documents dealing with ways of teaching critical thinking in general on the secondary level, and finally points to some aspects of learning about literature and language that involve critical thinking skills. (Author)

Author's discussion is based on the following assumptions: (1) the greater the degree of correspondence between the student's language and his world, the greater are his chances for sanity and survival; and (2) creativity consists of seeing new relationships, forming new organizations, or building new cognitive structures. (Author/MB)

A workshop concerned with Dienes' six stages in the process of abstraction and generalization is described. One of the logic games used with children in one of the demonstration lessons is explained in detail. (DT)