Education reform is an ongoing process that requires a major commitment over a long period of time. This volume, the second in a series of three, presents case-study findings of a 4-year research project on curriculum reform, with a focus on science education, mathematics education, and higher order thinking across the disciplines. The study, the…

As teaching pragmatic competence is considered to be one of the neglected aspects in English language teaching in Japan, this paper investigates the teaching of conversational English implicature of 126 Japanese English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) learners. University student participants were divided into three groups and given a multiple choice…

This paper investigates the beliefs about language learning held by 53 first-month university students enrolled in Swahili compared to those of 113 students of French and Spanish. Based in part upon the research design and instrument of Elaine Horwitz (University of Texas-Austin), this paper isolates the results from a larger study of eight…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of spatial ability level and window presentation style of tiled and overlapped computer displays on the achievement of dental hygiene students. Participants were 43 first-term Dental Hygiene students enrolled full-time at a University School of Dental Medicine. Phase one of this project…

The view of learning that underlies standard test theory is inconsistent with the view rapidly emerging from cognitive and educational psychology. Learners become more competent not simply by learning more facts and skills, but by reconfiguring their knowledge; by "chunking" information to reduce memory loads; and by developing…

This document is a collection of papers dealing with science achievement and teaching and learning strategies. The first paper, "Quality in the Science Curriculum," discusses quality objectives, quality learning opportunities, quality methods of instruction, quality in the philosophy of education, and quality evaluation procedures. It argues that…

Curricula are both the arena and the result of the struggle for hegemony in educational discourse and practice, but teachers have some freedom to give their own interpretations to the values they want to develop in their students. This paper gives examples of how teachers combine stimulating the development of specific values with teaching…

This paper describes college classes according to their prevailing goals and incentive structures to determine the extent that they can be characterized as emphasizing mastery and performance goals and individualistic, cooperative, and competitive incentives. A second focus is on the relationship between these goals and incentives. Participants…

Social cognitive theory suggests that students use both affective and cognitive study strategies in directing their own learning processes. This study explored the correspondences between both strategy types and the self-regulated learning of rural at-risk students. Sixty-seven 11th- and 12th-graders from 12 rural high schools completed the…

A study examined the use of dialectic (Learning) journals in a grade 3 social studies class during the 1993-94 school year. The topic was "Communities Need Each Other," and categories used for the journals were: (1) What I Learned; (2) What It Means; (3) What It Means To Me and My Family; and (4) What It Means To The World. The eight subjects…

A study examined a comparison of the effectiveness of cooperative learning in small groups with whole classroom instruction using the Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) during reading. Subjects for the 8-week study were 53 sixth-graders from 2 classes in Brooklyn, New York. The stories used all came from the same basal reader. A reading…

Four preschool children with developmental delays were taught to name the numerical value of sets of geometric figures, the corresponding numeral, the corresponding number word, and the corresponding Roman numeral. Half of the stimuli were taught with instructive feedback and the other half without, as two conditions were established: the future…

The primary purpose of this study was to understand what happens when some aspects of the constructivist approach, namely prediction, explanation, student-centered, and teacher-centered discussions, are applied to science teaching. The study involved 363 junior high school students in Taiwan. It combined the effectiveness of four alternative…

Reuven Feuerstein's theory of Mediated Learning Experience was developed to explain individuals' different propensities for learning by linking those differences to an individual's exposure--through specific experiences--to his or her own culture, irrespective of its nature or level of conceptualization, technology, or institutionalized education.…

This resource book is intended to help teachers and schools enhance their teaching of thinking, and to make their teaching of thinking skills more deliberate, explicit, and an integral part of the school curricula. It challenges all educators to reflect on their involvement in teaching for thinking, teaching of thinking, and teaching about…