This paper addresses the problem of how school environments can be restructured to address the key requisites of cognitive development for all children. Following the problem statement, the second section discusses the historic concerns related to restructuring and the research underlying them--the roots of the cognitive revolution, the…

The potential for the coherent integration of the cognitive and affective aspects of student development through a constructivist approach is discussed in this paper. Educators should be concerned with students' learning with regard to developing values and characteristics, especially respect and responsibility. The obstacles that hinder the…

The Cognitive Project at Passaic County College (New Jersey) was designed to develop a curriculum that would give educationally underprepared, nontraditional students an opportunity to actively experience ways of acquiring, solidifying, and using knowledge while acquiring the basic skills necessary for college work. Student explorations were…

Issues pertaining to thinking skills are discussed in an attempt to clarify what thinking skills are and their components, how they function and how they can be developed in the teaching-learning environment. Chapter 1 reviews the definitions of thinking skills. These definitions are selected from the current literature on education and…

A study examined whether the higher-order thinking patterns elicited by a reader response approach would carry over and become part of students' ways of thinking about literature, even in the absence of reader response prompts. Subjects were fourth-grade students (48 in all) in two intact, heterogeneously grouped classrooms in the same elementary…

This paper proposes a collaborative processing model for art education that draws upon the language and learning theories of Lev S. Vygotsky. This model is a means by which students' natural affinity for socialization and inclination to attend to their own personal agendas may be used to increase learning motivation and effectiveness. The model…

Years of research have shown that student learning is based on cognitive development. This finding has implications for the teaching of vocational education, especially to marginal students who are potential dropouts. Research has shown that students who have an internal rather than an external locus of control and who are more field independent…

The goal of this paper is to sketch the epistemological roots of constructivism, to clarify certain implications of Piaget's constructivist theory for science education, and to explicate the issues surrounding a specific research study and its replication. Constructivist epistemology is described in terms of its emergence from rationalist,…

A study of the effects of the Instrumental Enrichment cognitive intervention program with 41 severely hearing impaired secondary school students was conducted. Experimental and control groups were compared in regard to general cognitive functioning, problem-solving strategies, reading comprehension, and mathematics. Experimental subjects were…

This book is a compilation of 47 wide-ranging papers presented at the International Conference on Play and Play Environments. The introduction reviews both the historical recognition of the value of play by various philosophers and educators and the historical disregard for childhood that has prevailed through the centuries, particularly in…

To investigate the factors determining why some children succeed at certain intellectual tasks while others of equal or near equal IQ, age, and motivation are unable to master the same task, 145 female and 144 male eighth grade students were administered "An Inventory of Piaget's Developmental Tasks" (IPDT). Labeled as concrete,…

Any consideration of basic skills must at some point achieve the realization that a fundamental skill is the ability of the mind to create, produce, and utilize meaning. The purpose of productive and creative thinking is to know and understand, to produce and utilize meaning that serves to guide and direct mental and physical behavior. The overall…

This paper contends that the science education community would benefit from a three-step, research-based model that would allow science education researchers, in the final step, to make recommendations to classroom teachers. The first step would be to establish an interdisciplinary approach to research on how the brain and mind learn and remember.…

Conducted in Swaziland in 1984 and 1985, this research study explored children's logical thinking skills. One of the primary elements examined was the relationship between previous preschool experience and the child's ability to perform logical thinking tasks. The study consisted of six Piagetian tasks given to 400 children, preschool through…

This paper provides an introduction to the Alberta Education Developmental Framework, and describes the provincial department's position on curriculum and the cognitive domain. Intended for use in designing and implementing instruction, the developmental framework delineates the developmental stages and processes through which students progress,…