Contends that the challenges of multicultural education and application of new learning theories are having a dramatic impact on music education. Asserts that a new type of "world music" is emerging in which improvisation and creativity plays a significant role. Includes a table with seven improvisation exercises. (CFR)

Describes a comprehension strategies instruction program called Students Achieving Independent Learning (SAIL). Relates the program to reader response and transactional theories of reading. Shows how the program works in one school system. Compares SAIL with basal series instruction programs. (HB)

Argues that educators should reconsider their current commitment to problem solving as the way to promote constructionist teaching and learning and should focus on teaching important ideas developed within the disciplines. This idea-based social constructivism focuses on the possibilities of a given situation. (SLD)

Reviews developmental literature on cognitive gender differences; and compares past and present trends in gender differences, by age, from standardizations of the Wechsler Intelligence Scales and the California Achievement Tests. Decreases are found in gender differences for adolescents but not for adults. Implications are discussed. (SLD)

Argues that scientific literacy requires that students know how to apply scientific theories and that the skill of theory articulation has to be taught explicitly. Analysis of textbooks and tests indicates that this is not currently done. Offers Roger C. Schank's theory of explanation as a starting point to develop that skill. (Author/MDH)

Argues that the behavioral or "human" sciences are fundamentally different in scope and intent from the natural sciences. Describes the use of controversial topics in undergraduate courses and provides a four-step process. Recommends using Karl Popper's falsification theory to help students think critically about issues. (CFR)

This article reviews research on cognition and intervention among individuals (mostly males) with fragile X syndrome, the second leading cause of mental retardation. It describes general syndrome characteristics, specific cognitive characteristics (such as better verbal than performance abilities), and educational implications. (Author/DB)

Describes a teaching technique based on using children's questions as a formative and summative assessment tool with emphasis placed on children's answers as well as their questions. Children's explanations clearly show their thinking. Eliciting further explanations allows children to look deep into their understanding and construct meanings for…

Reports on a case study in which students identify their diverse views on electric current and design a critical test to discriminate amongst those views. Employs a two-part model that differentiates charge from the agent causing it to move. Contains 43 references. (DDR)

Comparison of 17 academically gifted and average intermediate grade students on the use of elaborative interrogation to improve reading comprehension found that gifted children had greater recall than average students prior to and one week after training, despite equivalent levels of strategy use. Results suggest the optimal level of strategy use…

Maintains that certain concepts in mathematics are difficult to learn because of problematic continuity from prior knowledge to new concepts. Focuses on the problems of conceptual change connected with the learning of calculus and the shift from rational to real numbers. Summarizes the results of a study involving secondary students. (MJP)

Discusses issues related to psycholinguistics since second-language acquisition (SLA) research has emerged as a scientific discipline. These issues include the debate about the place of an innate universal grammar in language acquisition, basic cognitive mechanisms underlying SLA, and pedagogical implications of recent developments in the…

Focuses on the responses of elementary school children (N=336) to an "Awareness of Technology Survey" question intended to explore how they would begin the technological problem-solving process. Contains 29 references. (DDR)

Synthesizes the concept of "cultural border crossing" with "collateral learning," its cognitive explanation. Examines and advocates the efficacy of reanalyzing previously published interpretive data in light of this conceptual synthesis. Contains 59 references. (Author/WRM)

A reanalysis of data from three previously published studies on whether creativity is content general or content specific suggest that, contrary to the results of recent research, a content-general factor may explain 40-50% of the variance in creativity checklist scores. Results are analyzed in light of other studies. (Author/CR)