Approaches to teaching thinking such as direct teaching of thinking skills and metacognitive approaches, if applied thoughtlessly, can backfire and inhibit thinking, especially with students who are already able, but unconventional, thinkers. We do not know enough about the nature of thinking processes to warrant a mandated thinking skills…

A response to the opinion by John Baer that teaching thinking puts able thinkers at risk. The chances are greater that educators may retreat from teaching thinking if they are uncertain about the importance and possibility thereof than that able students will be harmed by efforts to help them. (Author/TE)

Evidence from the Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) program suggests that at-risk students show little understanding of content without first receiving concentrated instruction in understanding itself. Teaching thinking skills to at-risk students requires a thinking environment, consisting of exploratory conversations, stimulation of curiosity,…

Describes and outlines the general syllabus of a philosophy course entitled, "Minds and Robots." Lists the assigned readings and explains the issues addressed in the 14-week course. Essay questions that are used for the mid-term and final exams are also included. (ML)

This paper examines Longstreth's criticisms of Jensen's studies relating reaction-time to measures of intelligence and finds them unconvincing. While Longstreth raises some interesting questions, the authors found no evidence in the data for practice or order effects in a reaction-time paradigm. (BS)

Use of conventional standardized intelligence tests to identify gifted students presents problems with students from diverse cultural backgrounds. Assessment of learning ability (in particular the method of "test, teach, and test") may be a better method for identifying gifted students. Tests being used in Israel and Great Britain are…

Examined cognitive and personality patterns of 84 court-referred adolescents to identify predictors of recurrent delinquent behavior. It was found that continued behavioral problems at follow-up were more likely in adolescents with discrepancies between Verbal and Performance intelligence quotient or large differences between "neurotic" and…

Compares maternal ratings of temperament obtained for 50 preschool children with measures of children's intellectual achievement taken at age four and when children were in second grade. Implies that a child's ability to attend to tasks and modulate behavior may be the best predictor of performance on achievement tests. (Author/DR)

Administered the Hooper Visual Organization Test (VOT) to 54 elementary students referred for psychometric evaluation. Results showed no significant relationship between sex and VOT scores, but age and IQ were significant correlates. (JAC)

Evaluated demographic and developmental differences in case studies of disturbed children (N=58) who were treated with developmental therapy. Results indicated children differed in age, intelligence, and mother's employment status. Although all children progressed in behavior, communication, socialization, and academics, no difference was found in…

Annotates reference material on artificial intelligence, mostly at an introductory level, with applications to education and learning. Topics include: (1) programing languages; (2) expert systems; (3) language instruction; (4) tutoring systems; and (5) problem solving and reasoning. (JM)

Addresses the consumer's need for more information by describing a framework for integrating test data when it applies to minority children and their families. The progression to nonbiased assessment includes legal decisions and guidelines, further training and education for professionals who test, and greater awareness of issues for all consumers…

Criticizes the Detroit Tests of Learning Aptitude 2 (DLTA-2): (1) scoring criteria for the Story Construction Test are questionable; (2) the Word Fragment Test may not be practically significant; (3) the Picture Book is inconvenient to use without an index or table of contents. One major strength is the provision for combining subtest scores. (SRT)

The predictive relationship between the WISC-R and the PIAT and WRAT scores of 125 Mexican-Americans and 125 non-minority students (K-8) was analyzed using four methods. Conventional methods were found to be insensitive to and inappropriate for the detection of predictive bias. An alternative means of detecting predictive bias is proposed.…

Describes a programming environment called Tinker, in which a beginning programmer presents examples to the machine, distinguishing accidental and essential aspects of the examples. Examples of programming in Tinker are presented in which programmers demonstrate how to handle specific examples and the machine formulates a procedure for handling…