Teachers can use unit blocks as tools for directed learning activities, or blocks can be reserved for children's discovery learning experiences. To use unit blocks for discovery learning, children need adequate, protected space and sufficient, uninterrupted time. Given opportunities for free play with unit blocks, children progress through seven…

Investigating properties and characteristics of unary operations is shown to be facilitated by using calculators. Several avenues for instructional exploration are suggested and examples given. These include questions relating to relations, inverses, commutativity, distributivity, and iterations. A discussion of the calculator algorithm for…

A transcript of a dialogue on independent, self-directed learning is presented. The three presenters, Ron Gross, Tom Hebert, and Allen Tough, and audience members discuss learning, schooling, discovery, motivation, public policy, and how all of these affect values and the quality of life. Nonformal, nonaffiliated learning--which takes place at…

This booklet contains a speech on the value of discovery learning in building a sound knowledge base. The author contends that systematic concepts (such as spatial relations) should be fully explored by experimentation and discussion in the classroom. The cognitive processes involved in solving problems are examined and examples are given of…

This study is one of several conducted by the authors in their investigation of the use of "higher order rules" in the solution of problems. The focus of the current experiment was determination of the compatibility of identified rules with the knowledge of average teenagers, and of the extent to which instruction in higher order rules…

Robert M. Gagne, Ralph W. Tyler, and Wilbert J. McKeachie, in independently prepared statements made before a summer institute on effective teaching, emphasized that good learning is active rather than passive; stresses the learning of principles; exploits the advantages in newness: exploration of something new, a new practice, a principle learned…

To introduce kindergarten-second grade children to the process of classification, a multimedia kit has been assembled. Mounted bird specimens, films, data cards, books, stickers and flash cards are provided. The classifying activities and the collecting of data from the bird mounts and films are all structured around games. Eight lesson plans are…

Open education, or informal schooling, is a growing educational trend in the United States. This sourcebook is made up of chapters by many different authors describing open education, how it functions, actual experiences with open education so far, and the basic philosophy and scientific findings behind open education. (RH)

The Australian Science Education Project is producing material designed for use in grades 7-10 of Australian schools. This is the first trial version of a unit concerned with sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. The teacher's guide outlines the use of the two booklets ("Messengers" and "Use of the Senses") intended for all…

The Australian Science Education Project is producing materials designed for use in grades 7-10 of Australian schools. This is the first trial version of a unit introducing the study of plants. The section to be completed by all pupils, contained in the first of the student workbooks, emphasizes observation of specimens on school grounds and on…

The "Open Classroom" approach offers an unconventional view of teachers, students and describes what schools should consist of. This book explains how the open classroom could work by suggesting that students will learn if they are placed in an environment far less structured than the traditional school. It suggests that learning takes place…

This study was designed to investigate the effects of discovery and expository methods of presentation on the immediate acquisition and retention of geometry concepts by seventh graders. Four geometry concepts, "quadrilateral,""rhombus,""trapezoid," and "parallelogram," were presented in written lessons which used either an expository or a…

Investigated was whether the opportunity to participate in discovery learning by means of an archaeological "dig" significantly enhances the development in sixth grade pupils of concepts and principles of archaeology and anthropology as compared with using the same data with conventional instructional procedures in a standard classroom situation.…