When learning a new concept, should students engage in problem solving followed by instruction (PS-I) or instruction followed by problem solving (I-PS)? Noting that there is a passionate debate about the design of initial learning, we report evidence from a meta-analysis of 53 studies with 166 comparisons that compared PS-I with I-PS design. Our…

Developing character strengths such as kindness and perseverance are just as crucial as academics for today's learners. This article describes how the author and the classroom teacher worked one-on-one with a third grade class to teach such attributes. Approximately once a month the classroom teacher and the author taught lessons on kindness,…

The relationship between instruction and transfer was studied to determine if tests of transfer would influence evaluation of instruction differently than tests of learning of specifics. Subjects were 120 fourth graders of average intelligence. The children were randomly assigned to one of the following groups: (1) rule treatment, (2) specific…

A teacher involved in Kentucky's statewide systemic reform began a personal effort to change her classroom through action research, especially in the area of higher order thinking. This action research gathered data about the aspects of metacognition that might develop naturally in 8- and 9-year-olds and then translated the data into classroom…

The problem posed by this study was to determine a method of presenting information that would maximize learning, by taking into account the learner's conceptual tempo, one aspect of his cognitive style. Specifically, this study investigated the possible interaction effects of the learner's impulsive-reflective disposition with the rehearsal part…