The Common Core State Standards, released in June 2010, offer an opportunity to shift education away from shallow, test-prep instruction and toward a focus on key cognitive skills, writes Conley. Two consortia of states are now developing common assessments to measure these standards--assessments that will be designed to capture deeper, more…

Author describes a design which seeks to formulate curriculum into discrete but interactive spheres. (Author/CB)

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

Short and long term strategies for implementing critical thinking skills into school programs are discussed. The short term strategy is to teach analytic skills within established subject areas, while the long term strategy involves recognizing and overcoming the unconscious obstacles to development of sound critical and dialectical thinking. (TE)

The Cognitive Levels Matching (CLM) project uses a constructivist base to teach teachers how to match the cognitive demands of curriculum and cognitive abilities of students. (MD)