The human capacity for technological innovation and creative problem-solving far surpasses that of any species but develops quite late. Prior work has typically presented children with problems requiring a single solution, a limited number of resources, and a limited amount of time. Such tasks do not allow children to utilize one of their…

We investigated the role of children's conflict monitoring skills in revising an intuitive scientific theory. Children aged 5 to 9 (N = 177; 53% girls, data collected in Germany from 2019-2023) completed computer-based tasks on water displacement, a concept prone to misconceptions. Children predicted which of two objects would displace more water…

Purpose: The researchers conducted a collective case study to investigate how families engaged in making activities related to aerospace engineering in six pop-up makerspace programs held in libraries and one museum. The purpose of this paper is to support families' engagement in design tasks and engineering thinking, three types of discussion…

Play is traditionally considered the foundation of learning in the early years. Because play is characterized by free choice, it can be difficult for adults to ensure all learning is useful for children. The intervention described here took a novel approach to this problematic. It exposed 17 four-year-olds to different adult demonstrations to see…

University programs are currently faced with a number of challenges: how to engage students as active learners, how to ensure graduates are "work ready" with broad and relevant professional skills, and how to support students to see their potential as agents of social change and contributors to social good. This paper presents the…

We compared the performance of 3- and 5-year-old children with that of chimpanzees in two tasks requiring collaboration via complementary roles. In both tasks, children and chimpanzees were able to coordinate two complementary roles with peers and solve the problem cooperatively. This is the first experimental demonstration of the coordination of…

THE ERROR FACTORS WHICH OPERATE DURING THE DISCRIMINATION LEARNING OF NORMAL CHILDREN WERE STUDIED. THREE EXPERIMENTS WERE CONDUCTED TO COMPARE RESPONSE-SHIFT AND RESPONSE-PRESERVERATION TENDENCIES OF DIFFERENT AGE GROUPS. THE FIRST EXPERIMENT INCLUDED 4-, 6-, 8-, AND 10-YEAR-OLDS WHO WERE GIVEN REWARD AND NONREWARD PROBLEMS. THE SECOND EXPERIMENT…

This monograph reports the proceedings of a symposium that considered issues in the use of learning hierarchies in both psychological and educational research. The opening paper presents a brief overview of research on learning hierarchies. Issues considered include the use of behavior analysis as a basis for generating hierarchies, the extent to…

This article presents 10 safety activities for children. Among others, car and bus safety activities helps children develop social and language skills as they simulate riding safely in a car or bus.

This book provides descriptions of 76 engaging activities that can be used to teach children, adolescents, and adults valuable social, emotional, and problem-solving skills. Some of the skills taught include identifying and expressing one's own emotions, identifying emotions in others, coping with stressors, making and keeping friends, setting…

This paper argues that it is important to provide children with complementary activities in a horizontal arrangement in order to promote acceleration of vertical levels of thinking. A brief review of literature on the relationship between experience and logical thinking is presented and the definition and function of transfer are discussed.…

This paper describes research that explored the question of whether or not it is possible to characterise and teach a single type of educationally productive talk. We analysed and compared the quality of children's interactional strategies when jointly working on a reasoning task and a psycholinguistic task. The latter involved writing an…

The purpose of this comic-activity book is to teach children how to be safe and how to deal with peer pressure. The book centers on the characters McGruff the Crime Dog, his nephew Scruff, and American Indian children living on a reservation. Scruff, who is a child figure, encounters situations that children may experience or worry about,…

Examines what children learn from using educational technology in an informal, collaborative environment. Explores how mastering educational computer programs can promote problem-solving transfer. Studies at three after-school computer clubs reveal children who use educational software may learn content knowledge about computer literacy,…

Educators recognize that group work and physical involvement with learning materials can greatly enhance the understanding and retention of difficult concepts. As a result, math manipulatives--such as pattern blocks and number lines--have increasingly been making their way into classrooms and children's museums. Yet without the constant guidance…