In earlier times, practically everything was taught by apprenticeships. Schools are a recent invention that use many fewer teaching resources, but the computer enables us to go back to the resource-intensive mode of education, in a form called cognitive apprenticeship. This involves the use of modeling, coaching, reflecting on performance, and…

Activities designed to improve student questioning techniques are described. For journal availability see annotation SO 504 171. (DE)

Inquiry teaching forces students to actively engage in articulating theories and principles that are critical to understanding a domain. Inquiry teachers have three distinct goals: (1) to help students construct a given theory or set of principles; (2) to help students construct novel theories or principles; and (3) to teach students how to pose…

This paper represents one portion of an ongoing effort to elaborate on pedagogical principles based on structural-developmental (largely Piagetian) theory and research. Here, a concept of "problem structure" is developed as a means for identifying physical factors that contribute to children's ability to apply experimental reasoning.…

The idea that cognitive science can provide useful guidance to the teaching of physics has been met by some with skepticism. One argument is that the current understanding of cognition is too crude to be helpful; another, that any scientific approach to education stifles the art of teaching. Some feel that art and science need not be incompatible.…

This monograph provides teachers with a wide range of articles on the teaching of problem solving in the mathematics classroom. The first section, on Understanding the Problem, includes articles which provide a sense of the "problem" of teaching problem solving. The second section, on Devising a Plan, provides suggested plans for…

Although inappropriate computer experiences emphasizing things more than people are frequently introduced into elementary school classrooms by inadequately trained administrators and teachers, computers can be appropriately used to liberate or empower thinking abilities. Certainly, computers should be used for specific reasons, but…

This paper offers brief discussions of central aspects of public policy and curriculum guidelines for early childhood education in Minnesota and provides capsule descriptions of Piagetian research and national events reflecting trends in early childhood education. Following examination of these topics, the discussion contrasts the Piagetian…

Dance is a common metaphor in both the change and leadership literature. However, can dance, a movement art, actually be used to learn about leadership? The answer is yes and this exercise shows you how. Dance as an instructional strategy allows the instructor to tap the cognitive, affective, and conative components of the brain.

A good discussion is a product of well-chosen questions. (JH)

Students have little intuitive insight into the process of thinking and structuring ideas. The image of metaphor for a phenomenon acts as a kind of methodology for the study of the phenomenon by (1) defining the key issues or problems; (2) shaping the type of research questions that are asked; (3) defining the type of data that are searched out;…

Detailed is a strategy for teaching the transformation of word problems into equations, equation systems, or inequalities. Classroom experiments using the method are described and are favorable. The underlying philosophy of the method is that the transformation will be accomplished by means of comprehension at first, but in the second stage the…