The role of mathematics education in the elementary school classroom over the next few years is reviewed. The need for extensive reform is emphasized, especially the inclusion of noncomputational number concepts. (MP)

The interactive effects between mathematical achievement and manipulative v symbolic instruction with junior high school students are examined in this report. Low-achieving students benefited more from a manipulative approach to logical connectives, whereas high achieving students found the symbolic approach to be more effective. (MP)

Investigates the effects of teaching 120 first grade children specific strategies for nonvisual seriation on their performance on post-tests and retention tests. Results show that simple seriation can be learned and retained. (HM)

Stating that national educational policy increasingly involves the minimum competencies mentality, the author discusses his proposal to investigate the outer limits of human educability, addressing five steps toward creating educational programs to maximize human educability: master patterns, personal patterns, stages of development, educational…

The fan effect (the difficulty in retrieving any one fact after learning many about a concept) occurs only when the facts with repeated concepts are stored as independent episodes. It tells us nothing about the code formed by a pattern of interconnected concepts. (Author/CP)

Orthographic context and visual letter information were independently varied in a letter recognition task. The results contradicted the qualitative predictions of nonindependence theories of reading and are accurately described by a quantification of independence theory. (Author/CP)

Discusses recent developments in instructional psychology relative to cognitive task analysis, individual difference variables, and cognitive models of interactive instructional decision making, which use constructs developed within the field of cognitive/information processing psychology. (Author/WBC)

A list of five broad skill areas common to science and mathematics is presented and discussed. Also considered are the learning and teaching of basic skills. (MK)

Argues that constructivist science education works with an unsatisfactory account of knowledge which affects both its account of the nature of science and of science education. Includes a brief survey of realism and anti-realism in science. Contains 42 references. (DDR)

Discusses and criticizes a number of constructivist positions in education that are based on distinctions between the metaphors of "finding" versus "making" for the obtaining of new knowledge. Discusses what is of value in constructivism and what is ill-founded baggage. Contains 25 references. (DDR)

Considers the contribution psychology has made to understanding the way children learn science. Reviews the work of Piaget and the subsequent application of his theories to understanding science teaching and learning. Contains 150 references. (DDR)

Argues that there are many kinds of understanding and many ways to reach these different understandings. Suggests that this is the reason why articulating general rules that can consistently lead to understanding is difficult. Discusses the relationship between brain structure and learning. (DDR)

Examines the qualities of hypermedia information systems that enable them to facilitate learning and knowledge construction. Discusses the background of current learning theories, and describes a possible hypermedia system based on constructivist learning principles that could be developed through the use of intelligent autonomous agents.…

The constructivist educational theory of instructional scaffolding, where a teacher provides support to students on an as-needed basis and decreases support as the student's competence grows, is evaluated. Scaffolding is seen as being only one part of effective instruction for students with learning or other disabilities. Limitations to the…