Describes how a first-grade teacher used the "hypothesis-test" approach with Devin, a first grader who struggled as a reader and writer. Points out that, when she started working with Devin, she wanted to understand his difficulties, but by the end, she realized that it was her curriculum, not his difficulties, that needed to be in the foreground.…

Describes how a Title 1 lead teacher used the "hypothesis-test" approach with Joshua, a fifth-grade student from a "ravaged background" who was about two years behind in academic performance. Shows how, pursuing his inquiry, Joshua eventually became a strategic reader and a confident engaged learner. Notes that Joshua's turning point was also the…

Argues that confirming reading predictions emphasizes supporting evidence, while refuting predictions reinforces positive patterns of logic and scientific inquiry. Shows how teachers can change questions of confirmation to questions of refutation, using question examples about the story "Old Ben Bailey Meets His Match." (MM)

Hoping to develop in her students an understanding of mathematics as a way of thinking more than a way of doing, the author of this article describes how her students worked on a spatial reasoning problem stemming from an iteratively constructed sequence of cylinders. She presents an activity of making cylinders out of paper models, and for every…

The aim of this research was to show the importance of instruction in learning a specific set of words. Two different tasks were used in the experiment: one in which subjects were required to fill in sentences and choose the appropriate answer in a multiple choice exercise (lexical test), and the other was a rating task designed to assess semantic…

Recently, concerted efforts have been made to encourage teachers to utilize technology within the classroom. Just as other modes of presentation style have implications for students' perceptions of their classroom experiences, so, too, might teachers' use of technology. The current study investigated this possibility, as well as whether the…

This paper examines task design that affords deep changes in mathematical thinking in the context of peer interaction. We describe a study in which 60 low-level high-school students solved a proportional reasoning task, the "blocks" task as individuals and/or in dyadic interaction. We show that we could tailor the design of the task in order to…

This research compares the effectiveness in fostering the development of concept formation skills, of exposure for periods ranging from three to six years to two different methods of teaching mathematics to primary school children, one method (Z. P. Dienes) of the general "discovery" type, the other (H. Fletcher) of the…

Advocates changing the role of secondary school science from one of theory verification and problem solving to the formulation and acceptance of hypotheses for observed phenomena. Provides an example of the procedure using Hooke's Law. (CP)

Discusses the use of novels in studying social history. Proposes that the contents of novels be accepted not as a set of answers about a society, but as a set of questions, plausible hypotheses as to how the historian might organize his evidence. (Author/JK)

Author discusses science discovery lessons, presents a model of one, and offers suggestions for structuring other specific lessons. (Editor/MB)

Describes how a teacher used the "hypothesis-test" approach in elementary and junior high classrooms, teaching alone or team teaching, to be proactive about students needs instead of reactive to their disruptions or silence, to help kids who need it before they cry out, and to introduce them to the sweet taste of success before they encounter…

Twenty-seven elementary-level special educators used frequent curriculum-based measurement to test their a priori hypotheses about the relative effectiveness of different teaching strategies. The teachers became less dogmatic in their beliefs about effective teaching strategies and were more accepting of the premise that teaching strategies are…