Walla Walla Schools (Washington) designed a demonstration project using the Marzano thinking skills model, which emphasizes learning preparation, content thinking, and basic reasoning skills. Placing selected thinking skills within specific curriculum areas and grade levels proved so successful that teachers then collaborated on a content-free…

Explores the role of adaptation in cultural diffusion. Explains that adaptation theory recognizes the lack of independence between innovations and their environmental settings. Discusses testing and selection, modification, motivation, and cognition. Suggests that adaptation effects are pervasive in cultural diffusion but require a broader, more…

To overcome learner dependence when modeling cognitive processes, one teacher used direct teaching of specific thinking skills with her middle school language arts students. The teacher introduced the skill of analyzing for personification to her students. The class experimented with the skill, completed the task, and applied the skill to…

Defines education's new paradigm as schooling based on decision making, the critical thinking skills serving it, and the knowledge base supporting it. Outlines a model decision-making process using a hypothetical breakfast problem; a late riser chooses goals, generates ideas, develops an action plan, and implements and evaluates it. (4 references)…

This pamphlet reviews five reports that highlight an emerging consensus among researchers about the value of systematically incorporating cognitive instruction into the elementary school curriculum. First is a comprehensive framework by Robert J. Marzano and C. L. Hutchins for an integrated approach to thinking skills that has been developed and…

In 1984, Community College of Philadelphia received a $250,000 Ford Foundation grant to design and implement a transfer curriculum for predominantly poor, minority students. This paper describes the humanities faculty's team efforts to model a vital intellectual community for students by revamping curriculum approaches, value frameworks, and…

Explains the teaching-research method of instruction that employs the teacher and students as collaborative partners in the learning process. States that students attain knowledge through assimilating experiences in ways that are most meaningful for them. Case studies are included. (GG)

Describes how discrepant events can be employed as a viable teaching strategy. Reviews the theory of cognitive dissonance and provides examples and approaches in its resolution. Offers samples of discrepancy events and unexpected situations. (ML)

Presents an interview with an intelligence expert and author who proposes that the scope of intelligence testing be broadened according to his new taxonomy of intelligence, and that schools use intelligence tests to diagnose individual students' strengths and weaknesses. (MCG)

By restructuring the sequence in which American history is taught so that classes proceed from the present to the past, secondary students in the Backward History Project have learned history more effectively and have been more interested and involved than in standard classes. The philosophy underlying this change is discussed. (IS)

Reviews developments in geography education since World War II. Finds reasons for cautious optimism as a result of the development of national standards in core curriculum subjects and earlier efforts by the Geography Education National Implementation Project. (CFR)

Maintains that music teachers can develop interdisciplinary curricula without sacrificing the integrity of their own discipline by focusing on conceptual (rather than content) connections. Recommends focusing on instructional priorities, curricular appropriateness, and conceptual understanding when planning an interdisciplinary curriculum. Briefly…

Describes the storyline instructional strategy and its application to social studies. Storyline consists of incorporating content area material into an evolving narrative with subsequent material added to the story. Includes examples from grades 2, 9, and 11 storyline instructional units. (MJP)

Outlines a systematic approach to instructional design and discusses some of the cognitive and instructional issues involved in learning or teaching scientific concepts. Uses the concept of "acceleration" to illustrate the approach. Advocates the use of computers and related information technologies in concept teaching. (ML)

Argues that, even for young children, analogies offer conceptual models for supporting the development of understanding. Compared children's understanding of current electricity after instruction with and without the inclusion of analogies. Children receiving the analogies exhibited a broader understanding, especially concerning the process of…