The process of effective teaching--teaching that directly leads to student learning of standards-based content--is tenuous at best and easily disrupted by contextual and behavioral factors. In this commentary, I discuss the role of student support and mediation in teacher effectiveness and curricular reform. The most vocal students in physical…

In September 2006, the Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education released its final report entitled "A Test of Leadership: Charting the Future of U.S. Higher Education" postulating that graduates today are lacking important skills such as reading, writing, problem solving, and critical thinking. In the field of…

Examines the epistemological bases of general education, arguing that current curricular models generate a static, absolutist vision of knowledge. Advocates a curriculum based on the processes of knowing and of learning skills and concepts--across all domains and disciplines--rather than on the knowledge base itself. (DMM)

Addresses the question of whether the social studies should be abandoned. Discusses Kieran Egan's analysis of the importance of storytelling and Egan's proposal to abandon the social studies curriculum in favor of a pedagogy more consistent with the way children think. Critiques Egan's view and examines implications for educators. (SG)

David Carr (2002) has argued against the use of developmental theories as a basis for curriculum development in moral education. Although we find common ground with some aspects of Carr's arguments, we disagree with several of his criticisms of the cognitive-developmental approach to moral education. He confuses romantic ideology (as espoused by…

Discussed are Nathan Isaacs' contributions to education--his theory that knowledge is built up from birth onwards in a cumulative and developmental way, the educational implications that follow from this theory, his position as both a supporter and critic of Jean Piaget, and his specific contributions to early science teaching. (KC)

Argues that it is both possible and desirable to teach history to children in the elementary grades and that it would be educationally beneficial to substitute a history curriculum for the present elementary social studies curriculum. Contends that those who infer curricula from psychologists' findings are confusing concept and content. (Author/WD)

Research evidence suggests that there are natural variations in children's learning, many of which can be categorized by age and sex. Educators must become knowledgeable about brain growth and its curricular implications. (SK)

Overviews characteristics of preoperational thought, summarizes Piaget's theory of the peroperational child's view of reality, explores implications of the preoperational stage of development for early childhood science education, and provides general guidelines for an early childhood science curriculum. (Author/RH)

Lev Vygotsky (1986-1934) was an educational theorist and psychologist of extraordinarily wide knowledge whose major writings deal with the entire learning-teaching-development experience. Despite a wide-ranging interest in Vygotskian theory, the issue of imagination remains outside of the main line of general inquiries into his work. Thus, there…

Explains how the instrumental enrichment program helps adolescents and adults develop higher order thinking and problem-solving abilities. (Author/MLF)

The complex relationship between cognitive developmental research and children's science curricula is explored, focusing on the tendency to attribute shortcomings in performance to the child's age, the confounding of weak knowledge with developmentally based deficiency, and emphasis of stage-based constraints on children's thinking. (SLD)

Presented is a model of curriculum design for history instruction using the concept cluster approach. The importance of proper age/grade placement when teaching historical concepts and the developmental characteristics of children and adolescents are emphasized. (Author/RM)

Discusses curriculum literature on mental skills, with emphasis on Bruner's work. The skills model offered in the literature is found to be somewhat simplistic in conception and inadequate when applied to higher-order mental activities. The difficulties inherent in the notion of the transferability of mental skills are examined. (RM)

Notes that the ways in which spelling has been conceptualized have evolved dramatically over the last few decades. Explores the evolution of this reconceptualization through a discussion of spelling as a system, as a subject of instruction, and as a psychological and linguistic process in writing and reading. Explains how instructional…