Discusses Piaget's theory of constructivism and its practical application in schools. Gives evidence for the value of constructivist teaching and the importance of offering different kinds of education within the same system. (WD)

Discusses how one's conception of intelligence and its development profoundly affects the formulation of educational objectives. A mechanistic conception of intelligence leads to the definition of objectives as a collection of fragmented "cognitive skills", while a Piagetian conception attempts to develop children's intelligence as an…

A preschool curriculum for lower class children was developed based on Piaget's theory. Evaluation procedures were developed to parallel a Piagetian curriculum. According to Piagetian theory, the mechanism of classification is the coordination of the intensive and extensive properties of a group of objects. The ability to dichotomously classify…

Specific instruction refers to the teacher's knowing (a) what to teach and when, (b) what not to teach and why, and (c) when to let the preoperational child be "wrong." This paper is in agreement with Bereiter's criticism of Kohlberg's conclusion against specific instruction but suggests that Bereiter's argument should be developed into…

In this paper it is shown that one's conception of intelligence and its development profoundly affects the formulation of educational objectives. A mechanistic conception of intelligence leads to the definition of objectives as a collection of fragmented "cognitive skills" that have little to do with children's development of intelligence. A…

A Piagetian preschool emphasizes the child's active construction of mental images rather than passive association of words and pictures with real objects. The role of the teacher is neither to dictate good behavior nor to transmit ready-made predigested knowledge. Her role is to help the child to control his own behavior and to find things out as…

Presents a study of 87 second graders to demonstrate that achievement tests in primary mathematics emphasize pupil's lower-order thinking by comparing answers to interview questions from constructivist and traditionally instructed groups. Results indicated that constructivist instructed students demonstrated superior higher-order thinking on tasks…