Since teachers are the most familiar with the students they meet and with their own classroom opportunities, they are in the best position to design instruction for specific groups. This manual is a guide for creating activities for gifted and other students to do independently, without prior large group instruction. The activities enable teachers…

Open-ended learning environments (OELEs) provide contexts to support exploration, experimentation, and problem-solving. This paper creates a context for understanding the issues and challenges associated with the design and development of OELEs. Discussion first centers on characteristics of OELEs which differ from traditional learning…

This paper examines the novel problem solving actions of a pair of college students. The analysis highlights the role of the solvers' inferential processes including abductions, deductions, and inductions as structuring resources that contribute to both their understanding of the problems they face and the emerging novelty that constitutes their…

Achievement in science depends among other factors on hypothetico-deductive reasoning ability; that is, on the developmental level of the students. Recent research indicates that developmental level of the students should be studied along with individual difference variables such as Pascual-Leone's M-capacity (information processing) and Witkin's…

The purpose of this study was to characterize the prior conceptions of molecular structure that organic chemistry students expressed as they learned to interpret nuclear magnetic resonance spectra, and to describe the problem-solving strategies that students employ as they determine molecular structure. The two questions that frame this study…

This paper presents an examination of the construction of logic in multidigit subtraction. Interviews were conducted with 90 grade 2 and grade 3 students to determine whether they understood the logic of borrowing and whether the construction of the logic was related to procedural expertise or corresponding conceptual knowledge. Of 34 students…

The Educational Technology Center has attempted to develop a series of computer based learning environments to support the learning and application of multiplicative reasoning. The work and software described in this paper, including the teaching experiment that generated the error phenomena examined, is part of a larger ongoing research project.…

One approach to the study of problem solving is to observe how people with different skills (novices and experts) solve problems by collecting and analyzing protocols and formulating models to obtain solution processes. Individual differences are subsequently explained by the differences in the knowledge possessed, as embodied by the sets of…

This digest suggests that research findings can provide teachers with verification and clarification of how children learn mathematics, and thus how to teach mathematics more effectively. Three topics are discussed: (1) number concepts; (2) problem solving; and (3) manipulative materials. (PK)

Published previously as six separate books, this revised manual contains lesson plans for over 300 K-12 environmental education experiences. Four activity sections follow an introductory chapter on the philosophy, model, and implementation guidelines for the "people-environment interaction" perspective upon which these activities focus. The…

AN ADDRESS FOR CLASSROOM TEACHERS IS PRESENTED WHICH CONSIDERS THE NATURE OF COMPREHENSION AND THE PROCESSES INVOLVED IN TEACHING CHILDREN TO COMPREHEND WHAT THEY READ. A REVIEW OF THE RESEARCH ON COMPREHENSION SINCE 1960 IS GIVEN. THE FOLLOWING TOPICS ARE DISCUSSED--THE PROCESS OF COMPREHENDING, THE KINDS OF COMPREHENSION, THE RELATIONSHIP…

OVER 40 ARTICLES AND STUDIES RELATED TO THE PIAGETIAN THEORY OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT ARE CRITICALLY REVIEWED AS A BASIS FOR SUGGESTING APPLICATIONS OF THE THEORY TO EDUCATIONAL EVALUATION. PIAGET'S CONCEPTS ARE ANALYZED WITHIN TWO BROAD CATEGORIES, THE STAGE OF CONCRETE OPERATIONS, FROM APPROXIMATELY SEVEN TO 11 YEARS OF AGE, AND THE STAGE OF…

The purpose of this study was to determine (1) whether the development of combinatorial schema as defined by Piaget is dependent on, or independent of, instruction, and (2) whether or not a prescribed treatment compatible with contemporary learning theories can develop the combinatorial operational abilities of students who are in a transitional…

Three studies to determine the effects of adult models on interrogative strategies of children (ages 6-11) are reviewed. Two issues are analyzed: (1) the comparative effectiveness of various types of modeling procedures for changing rule-governed behaviors, and (2) the interaction between observational learning and the developmental level of the…

This curriculum guide, part of a series of science units, stresses concept-learning through the discovery approach and child-centered activities. It is intended that the unit will be studied in depth by grades 3, 4, 5, and 6. Kindergarten pupils will study the unit in less detail. "Our Useful Rocks" is studied in the kindergarten,…