"In Brief" focuses on K-12 mathematics and science research and implications for policymakers, educators, and researchers seeking to improve student learning and achievement This brief highlights the learning gains of 240 elementary students involved in a long-term study in Madison, Wisconsin and their remarkable ability to reason with arithmetic…

This paper poses and answers 20 questions about mathematical reasoning. Questions include: (1) Is mathematical reasoning mathematical? (2) Is mathematical reasoning useful? (3) Is mathematical reasoning an appropriate goal of school mathematics? (4) Can teachers teach mathematical reasoning? (5) Can mathematical reasoning be taught? (6) Do skills…

The article describes a study to determine how instruction on the distinction between two theoretical ideas will affect the intake, interpretation, and recall of new information related to but different from the first. (Author/SB)

Presents a theoretical model that attempts to lessen the fragmentation of skill instruction in social studies. The model uses reasoning as a goal toward which social studies instruction can move. Curriculum implications relative to skill coordination are discussed. (Author/DB)

Builds on the results of earlier research that investigated principles that facilitate higher levels of learning in Internet-based distance learning university courses. Explores how these can be applied to Internet-based distance learning environments, using results of questionnaires from experts and scholars that considered complex abstracted…

Conventional instruction in critical thinking may ignore the creative and intuitive functions of rationality, thereby encouraging a mechanically rote approach to textual analysis, problem solving, and problem construction. Such an overemphasis upon logical "calculus of justification" functions has epistemological weaknesses and pedagogical…

Considers Richard Ohmann's argument that composition texts which instruct students to emphasize concrete details over abstract concepts encourage conformity with the dominant order. Suggests that Ohmann failed to consider the effects of teachers' and students' viewpoints. Cites methods that encourage students to use detail as a device of broader…

The effectiveness of coaching active reasoning of students with learning disabilities was studied with 63 grade 4 and 5 students. Students in the coaching condition outperformed students in the two comparison conditions on immediate and one-week delayed tests of factual information and explanations. (Author/SW)

Simple graphing activity helps primary students make the jump from counting concrete objects to understanding abstract symbols. As part of the activity, students vote for their favorite season, then stand up and become a graph of the data they collect. The activity requires the Graph Club Classroom Kit software program. (SM)

This article describes a 16-session training program to improve analogical reasoning skills in school-age children with language disorders, patterned after R. Sternberg's componential theory of analogical reasoning. Phase I consists of mediated learning experiences in which the instructor focuses on the direct instruction of the component…

Comparison of the comprehension of proverbs of 200 students (50 each in Grades 6, 8, 10, and 12) found growth in proverb comprehension was most pronounced at two transitional points in development: when students move from late childhood into early adolescence, and again when they move from late adolescence into adulthood. Implications for…

This paper examines how emerging materials and associated methods became inscribed within and have shaped developing patterns of practice in environmental education. In so doing, it gives attention to how materials and methods have informed methodological narratives and shaped abstracted propositions used in professional development activities.…

Staff developers who have worked intensively with teachers to promote higher order thinking tend to emphasize similar types of training activities, especially involving teachers in higher order thinking and authentic problem solving in their subjects and translating ideas about the teaching of thinking into specific lessons for students.…

The development of critical ability, or cognitive criticism, is being studied in a two-year Swedish project described in this progress report. Cognitive criticism is valuable in all occupational fields, but especially futurology and technology assessment. This project proposes to make concrete the aims of critical training, and to identify and…

A selected bibliography of research studies and books related to mathematics and early childhood education. Studies cited pertain to the development of mathematical thought in children, teaching strategies, age-appropriate mathematical content, and assessment and evaluation of mathematical learning. Only materials published in the last five years…