Research has found that factors such as content, prompts, and individual motivational differences affect instructional effectiveness. While instructional effectiveness is acritical outcome variable, the limited availability of instructional time results in instructional efficiency being acritical consideration. This study evaluated whether varying…

Could problem solving be the object of teaching in early education? Could appropriate teaching interventions develop to scaffold children's efforts to solve problems? These were the central questions of this article. The sample consisted of 18 children attending public pre-school in Cyprus. The problem they were asked to solve was to find all…

In its mathematics standards, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) states that problem solving is an integral part of all mathematics learning and exposure to problem solving strategies should be embedded across the curriculum. Furthermore, by high school, students should be able to use, decide and invent a wide range of strategies.…

Presents activities to incorporate Polya's four-step problem-solving process. (KHR)

IN TWO ART LEARNING EXPERIMENTS, COLLEGE UNDERGRADUATES MADE SEQUENTIAL DRAWINGS, WORKING ALONE IN A STUDIO FOR ONE HOUR A WEEK, WITH STANDARDIZED DRAWING MATERIALS. A HIDDEN CAMERA TOOK TIME LAPSE PHOTOS OF EACH DRAWING. HALF THE TIME THERE WAS A STILL LIFE AS THE DRAWING STIMULUS, THE OTHER HALF NO STIMULUS. DEPENDENT VARIABLES WERE CHANGES…

Different groups of college students wrote one solution or many solutions to problems, like the plot-title problem, of verbal, numerical, and pictorial material. Instructions to write many solutions yielded solutions of lower mean quality, but more superior solutions. Information about criteria for good solutions raised quality. Large quantity was…

Five studies were conducted to investigate the relationship between short term memory (STM) and long term memory (LTM), and the relationship between STM and problem solving. In study I, the necessity of postulating separate learning processes for tasks which are traditionally classified as STM tasks as opposed to LTM tasks was investigated.…

The paper describes a discussion strategy for secondary school students. The strategy focus the various dimensions of Science, especially the internal sociological and philosophical dimensions. Students are expected to learn more about Science, namely the role of controversy for scientific progress. The article contains key questions for the…

A three-dimensional classification system of mathematical problems is given. A background philosophy is constructed through an analysis of different approaches to problem-solving research, leading to the statement of 5 theses and the objectives for the study. An exploratory study of mathematical problem-solving processes is conducted within this…