We traced the impact of a sequence of five research-based professional development sessions on a cohort of mathematics teachers' Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching. The sessions focused on task design and implementation as a means of building teachers' pedagogical capacity. Findings revealed that teachers' pedagogical knowledge pertaining to…

To investigate task performance and the use of private speech and to examine the effects of a cognitive training approach, 30 learning disabled (LD) and 30 nonLD Ss (7 to 8 years old) were given a 17 piece wooden puzzle rigged so that it could not be completed correctly. Six variables were measured: (1) proportion of private speech that was task…

The study investigated whether training in object permanence and/or means-end followed by a language training program will result in the learning of more language (as measured by number of words and syntactic complexity) than the language training program alone with 32 profoundly retarded children (3 to 10 years old). Secondary goals included…

The study examined the effectiveness of enhancing perceptual differentiation in the training of four developmentally delayed preschool children who were so low-functioning that they did not demonstrate oddity responding (ability to choose one distinct stimulus from a group of identical stimuli). Instead of the Arabic numerals used in the original…

Studies exploring the transition from early to middle adolescence have found a significant increase in formal-operational thinking, but it is questionable whether the typical adolescent is capable of consistently applying formal operational logic. To examine the relationship between Piagetian-based training techniques and formal-operational…

Tutor training programs in composition which emphasize interpersonal skills while offering concentrated correctness doses of mechanics and grammar are inherently limiting. While interpersonal skills are important, they only superficially address the complex situation of tutoring. A prescription for a healthy tutor program, one which would allow…

This paper briefly reports on a series of studies that explore the relationship between symbolic or pretend modes of reasoning and cognitive processes which underlie conservation of quantity. It is hypothesized that the mental transformations which the child makes while playing a game of make-believe, namely, the transformation from his original…

This paper briefly reviews the literature concerning the Paiget-Burner debate over the roles of identify and reversibility rules in conservation acquisition, and describes an experiment designed to determine whether one group of rules is more closely related to conservation than the other. A group of children, aged 4-6 years, received tests of…

Several approaches have been used to teach basic counseling skills to beginning trainees. A cognitive self-instructional modeling approach was employed with a student pre-practicum class. The treatment group (N=9) received 6 hours of training by observing counselor models, formulating their helping responses aloud, practicing the asking of focused…

A two-phased training study attempted (1) to accelerate the rate at which a total of 8 severely and profoundly retarded children (mean age 57 months) developed the Piagetian concept of object permanence and (2) to demonstrate generalization of the higher performance on object permanence scale to other scales of sensorimotor intelligence and to the…

American Indian paraprofessionals were trained to teach parents to use social learning principles to develop question-asking skills in their first-grade children. Subjects were assigned to three treatment groups of 10 subjects each for a time lag control form of multiple baseline design. Two hypotheses were tested: (1) instruction by parents would…

This study compares the effectiveness of four experimental training programs designed to foster altruism in kindergarten children. Subjects were 97 children 4-5 years of age in six preschool classes. The children were assigned as a class to one of the six training and control conditions. The four training conditions were: (1) role playing; (2)…

A study measured both short- and long-term effects of an educational workshop designed for teachers in the Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion, Israel. Participants were 60 volunteer faculty members who were randomly assigned to one of eight multidisciplinary groups for the 4-day workshop, which aimed at improving teachers' instructional…

This document contains three papers from a symposium on technological change and human resource development. "New Technologies, Cognitive Demands, and the Implications for Learning Theory" (Richard J. Torraco) identifies four specific characteristics of the tasks involved in using new technologies (contingent versus deterministic tasks,…