This paper offers a description of the Ball-Stick-Bird reading system which has been used successfully to teach students with IQs as low as 20 to read with comprehension. A summary of research findings on this approach is presented as well as a discussion of these findings within a neurological/behavioral/evolutionary framework. A new theory of…

Five award-winning high school and college economics education projects of the Program for Innovative Teaching of Reasoning are summarized. Preceding the summaries, an essay by Marvin Bower of the Joint Council on Economic Education suggests that developing reasoning abilities creates a happier and more effective individual, a more effective…

This document reports on two 3-day workshops designed to train three vocational education instructors or curriculum developers from every Wisconsin school district in specific critical thinking skills strategies that they could implement in their districts. The document includes a three-page narrative description of the workshops that includes…

This paper describes how the learning cycle leads students to become more skilled reasoners. The three phases of the learning cycle are described and examples and goals of each are provided. Information is also offered on the three types of learning cycles: the descriptive; the empirical-inductive; and the hypothetical-deductive. Each is described…

A supplemental instruction program was designed to assist students in mastering course concepts and to increase student competence in reading, reasoning, and study skills. Supplemental leaders, upper division students whose course competency has been certified by course instructors, attend course lectures where they take notes and complete…

This study investigated the development of students' abilities to integrate information in stories as an aspect of reading comprehension. Students aged 8, 11, 14, and 18 judged the importance of key statements, which varied in their causal relations within an episode, between episodes, and in a higher-order structure, yielding three levels of…

A number of studies have reported that there is a strong tendency to ignore base-rate information in favor of individuating information, except when the former can readily be incorporated into a causal schema. In this study, students in eight undergraduate classes were given problems in which the base-rate information was either causal or…

This pamphlet discusses group problem solving in schools. Its point of departure is that teachers go at problems from a number of different directions and that principals need to capitalize on those differences and bring a whole range of skills and perceptions to the problem-solving process. Rather than trying to get everyone to think alike,…

During 1985-86 the School Community Education Program (also known as the Umbrella Program), funded by the New York State Legislature, provided a variety of educational and training experiences to some 25,871 participants, including pre-kindergarten children and their parents; and students, teachers and supervisors from kindergarten through grade…

Six studies which were conducted to determine the effects of testwiseness training on middle school and undergraduate college students' test scores are described. Testwiseness was defined as the cognitive ability or set of skills which a test taker can use to improve his or her score. Testwiseness training presented methods for using deductive…

One of the challenges facing pupils in the history classroom is conceptual understanding. Pupils also find it difficult to recognise themes or patterns across different parts of time and space. Ian Myson has recognised the importance of analogy as a way to facilitate pupils' understanding. He is quick to recognise, however, that poor use of…

Automated Student Modelling explicates reasoning strategies, the representation of procedural skills, and underlying misconceptions as manifested in errors. A diagnostic model, based on a "procedural network" as opposed to a "semantic network," is presented which provides a technique both for modelling the underlying cognitive processes of a…

Separate articles describe courses designed to teach basic writing to academically underprepared college students. Six courses are described: a program which teaches students how to reason correctly, on the premise that students cannot write if they cannot think; a course which teaches academically underprepared black students how language…

This study compares the critical-reading strategies of 83 good and 72 poor sixth-grade readers and 96 good and 67 poor eighth-grade readers. After reading seven brief passages on social studies and science topics, the students responded to 42 statements that required either the ability to pull facts together and make conclusions based on unstated…

The results of implementing computer-assisted instruction (CAI) in two religion courses and a logic course at California State College, Bakersfield, are examined along with student responses. The main purpose of the CAI project was to teach interpretive skills. The most positive results came in the logic course. The programs in the New Testament…