Cognitive theories of problem solving and cognitive psychologists' suggestions for teaching problem solving are reviewed. Theories and suggestions from creativity research are also considered. How high proficiency levels in problem solving are acquired and how best to teach problem-solving skills (for both well- and ill-structured problems) are…

Stresses that teaching writing is a very difficult task because of, among other things, the problems in changing students' lifelong habits, their general lack of reading and summarizing skills, the intuitive nature of grammar use, and the lack of instruction in logical thinking. (CRH)

Concludes that sixth-grade students taught with methods that used a structured overview to activate background knowledge, the cloze procedure to develop an inferential thinking strategy, and a self-monitoring checklist to maintain the strategy increased their inferential comprehension skills as measured by both immediate and delayed transfer…

Reviews research on story grammar to show how crucial it is for readers of all ages to know how stories are structured. Examines implications for teaching and for choosing instructional materials. (FL)

This book is designed to be an intervention model based on the concepts of Piaget's study of constructivism. The application of this approach will help children with learning/ behavioral disorders actively participate in a fuller integration of their own psychomotor, affective, and cognitive information processing skills and adaptation. The work…

We examine the long term history of the development of fundamental representational infrastructures such as writing and algebra, and how they were physically implemented via such devices as the printing press and computers, in order to (1) gain insight into what is occurring today both in terms of representational infrastructure change and in…

Cognitive interviews were conducted with 12 teachers and 66 of their students to learn how to improve National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) questionnaire items asking about instructional practices and teacher development experiences. Items were purposively selected from those used in the 1996 and 1998 NAEP student and teacher…

This study examines the use of question prompts and peer interactions as scaffolding strategies to help undergraduate students with their problem-solving processes on an ill-structured task. The mixed research method, combining both experimental and comparative multiple-case studies, was used to study the outcomes as well as the processes of…

This paper presents learning tasks of a new type that are made possible by dynamic geometry software and discusses reasons why it takes time for teachers to design and use such tasks. The paper is divided into four sections: (1) The Spatial and the Theoretical; (2) Tasks in Dynamic Geometry Software Fostering the Learning of Geometry; (3) The…

Researches indicate that worked examples could effectively facilitate problem solving by reducing cognitive load during learning. However, there is no study using worked examples in a game-based environment. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of worked examples on problem solving in a game-based environment. In this study,…

A review of studies on chaos theory suggests that some elements of the theory (systems, fractals, initial effects, and bifurcations) may be applied to classroom learning. Chaos theory considers learning holistic, constructive, and dynamic. Some researchers suggest that applying chaos theory to the classroom enhances learning by reinforcing…

The effective use of technology in the mathematics classroom depends on the interaction between students and their peers, students and teacher, and students and technology. This report describes a study of the introduction of a cognitive teaching model for using graphing calculators in a secondary mathematics classroom in Hong Kong. Episodes of…

This monograph is a synthesis of research findings of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development research program concerning how children learn to read, why some children and adults have difficulties learning to read, and effective ways to help children learn to read. The review covered studies performed over the last 33 years at…

The transformation from active to passive voice is analyzed by the student according to a sequence of specific "rules", analagous to the steps one might use to program a computer to perform the same transformation. (DD)