This study examined the use of writing as an instructional methodology for enhancing Afro-American preservice teachers' knowledge of and attitudes towards teaching during their year-long field practicum experience. Data are presented relative to the interrelatedness of writing competence and cognitive complexity. Subjects (n=81) included 27…

Western European forms of discourse have been foisted upon the world as the universal value-neutral reference point. External standards have been used to assess aboriginal discourse, particularly in public contexts such as schools and courtrooms. These standards assume that there is one single correct way to proceed (to talk, write, argue, teach),…

A study was conducted to gain insight into the process that facilitates emancipatory education. The sample consisted of 24 Caucasian middle-class women who had experienced a transformation of consciousness related to women's issues and who were acting for the structural change of society through communications, politics, religion, or education.…

This paper reviewed literature on cognition to help art teachers understand what they can learn from the huge body of literature that has been generated by cognitive psychologists. It is argued that, in this information society, teaching memorization skills is not enough; students must learn problem-solving skills. A long list of specific thinking…

Two studies investigated the differential effects of organizational cuing and strategy training on learning disabled (LD) adolescents, a group which, it has been suggested, is particularly insensitive to the effects of organizational cues. Participants for the first study included 37 LD and 50 nonhandicapped high school students who were randomly…

During the summer of 1986 a conference funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) was organized to assess the current state of cognitive research on the psychology of physics problem solving, and to examine the needs of physics instructors and instructional designers that must be addressed by a psychological theory of physics problem solving.…

This study investigated preservice elementary teacher reasoning ability levels, science anxiety levels, and content achievement in a large midwestern university. Pretest and posttest measures were taken on three dependent variables: (1) reasoning ability (cognitive development); (2) science anxiety; and (3) science content achievement. In…

This document reports on a study into the relationships between cognitive preferences, achievement, and ethnicity of first year algebra students. The sample consisted of 175 students from two high schools in the Denver (Colorado) metropolitan area. The two schools were chosen because of the diversity of ethnic groups in the student populations.…

An analysis of children's narrative composition and art revealed concurrent development at both a general structural level and at a fine-grained detail level. A three-part study investigated whether this general cognitive pattern would be maintained across a different range of tasks: literary composition, scientific reasoning, and working memory.…

The problem beginning secondary school teachers face in bridging the knowledge gap between the subject discipline studied in college and the content that must be taught to high school students is analyzed in this study. To demonstrate this problem and follow the progressive steps taken to partially solve it, case studies are presented of two…

This paper contends that efforts at educational reform must focus, above all, on the instructional encounter between teachers and students. The argument is presented in triadic sequence: three basic assumptions about learning, three interrelated models of the instructional process, and three practical approaches to promoting cognitive achievement.…

Explores three aspects of temporally displaced talk between mothers and children: (1) the role of the knowledge base in such talk; (2) the effect of mother talk on child talk; and (3) the impact of such talk on the child's knowledge base. Indicates that maternal speech can mediate information and experience and contribute to the child's world…

Proposes a framework for interpreting current research in science education. Presents four prototypes for describing research which are derived from comparisons and combinations of "spontaneous" and "formal" knowledge. Discusses possible applications of the use of the framework in science education. (TW)

Provides information about the curriculum characteristics of first- and third-year high school Spanish textbooks and determines what differences exist among the texts involved. Study results indicate that these textbooks are consistently "deficient" on nearly all of the dimensions examined. (Author/SED)

This study addresses questions about particle physics that focus on the nature of electrons. Speculations as to whether they are more like particles or waves or like neither illustrate the difficulties with which students are confronted when trying to incorporate the concepts of quantum physics into their overall conceptual framework. Such…