Analyzes the art criticism of nine university art education students writing about the work of Robert Rauschenberg. Identifies the students' use or nonuse of thematic unity, intertextuality, opposition, and description. These thinking strategies are primarily found in the works of three professional art critics. (MJP)

Examines operations of generalization, identification, discrimination, and synthesis in mathematical concept development from early childhood to late adolescence according to Vygotsky's theory of development. (MDH)

Fifty-three adolescents with learning disabilities or mild mental retardation were taught reasons for dinosaur extinction. Those taught in a mnemonic elaborative interrogation condition recalled more reasons than did students who received direct teaching. Students in elaborative interrogation and mnemonic elaborative interrogation groups recalled…

Psychologist Howard Gardner argues that schools fail because they do not confront often flawed childhood theories about the world that students bring to the classroom. He claims teachers must acknowledge, challenge, and build on such assumptions so students can internalize lessons taught in school and apply them outside the classroom. (SM)

Describes the relationship between language concepts and the basic patterns of mathematical expressions. Suggests ways to improve the reading comprehension, writing ability, and reasoning skills of school and college students by integrating language topics into the mathematics curriculum. Discusses the use of language concepts in algebraic…

A year-long qualitative study of 10 families of gifted children (grades 5 to 8) found 4 levels of parental reasoning concerning their child's social and emotional development: (1) no framework; (2) an intellectual framework only; (3) a full intellectual and partial social-emotional framework; and (4) a comprehensive framework recognizing both…

This article describes an extended collaboration between a development team and an evaluation team working with GenScope, an open-ended exploratory software tool. In some respects, this was a routine evaluation, documenting substantial gains (of roughly 1 SD) in genetics reasoning ability in all but 1 of 17 classes, despite challenges presented by…

This article examines students' ability to use the balance model to solve for unknowns. A teaching experiment was conducted in four Year 3 classrooms. This experiment focused on exploring the application of the balance model as an analogue for representing equations and solving for unknowns. The teaching experiment promoted a shift by students…

Despite the central role of risk assessment in analyzing and making decisions about many environmental issues, most people are poorly equipped to understand key concepts about risk or apply them successfully. I present three class activities in which students develop a better appreciation for the magnitude of a one in a million increased risk of…

The authors describe one high school teacher's attempt to change her mathematics teaching in ways that are consistent with the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics'"Standards" documents. One of the coauthors is the teacher who teaches in a professional development school; the other, a researcher, conducted regular observations in…

The "componential" theory of intelligence explains intelligence in terms of three types of component processes that make up intelligent performance. The first of these, "metacomponents," are the higher-order or executive processes that one uses to plan what one is going to do, monitor what one is doing, and evaluate what one…

College attendance patterns, areas of study, and abilities of Asian Americans are considered. Asian Americans pursue higher education at somewhat higher rates than average, and the rate is increasing. They concentrate in business, the physical sciences, and engineering in greater than expected numbers in comparison with the general student…

A study investigated the reason for the high performance of bilingual children on a syllogistic reasoning task. Thirty-nine Puerto Rican Spanish-English bilingual children in grades 3 through 6 were asked to solve problems in both languages. Response times were recorded, and the subjects were asked to justify their answers to assess to what extent…

This paper attempts to fill some of the gaps in the literature (on reflective teaching), delving further into the meaning and functions of reflection. First, it considers the origins of the term and some aspects of its development. It then analyzes and critiques some of the current notions of reflection. Beginning the process of a more rigorous…

A model for the development of scientific reasoning in adolescents was formulated largely upon the basis of Piagetian theory. Included as potential determinants of scientific reasoning were: experience; age; locus of control; field dependence-independence (FID); rigidity/flexibility; intelligence quotient (IQ); and sex. Causal relationships…