Basic writing teachers can make use of the Learning Cycle teaching technique to design exploration and invention activities with which their students can practice analytical writing. The Learning Cycle approach is based on Piagetian theory and involves a three-phase process of exploration, invention, and discovery. In the exploration phase…

A study was designed to evaluate whether congruency or incongruency between a teacher's intended discovery/inquiry laboratory instructional strategy and his/her actual behaviors used to implement that strategy had an effect on higher level learning by students. Also assessed was whether student performance on science projects can be an effective…

Experiential education as a teaching strategy differs from traditional classroom learning largely because the sequence of events in the process is reversed. In experiential education the learner first carrys out an action, sees the results, and from this basis generates concepts and principles. By first understanding the basic components of the…

The value of experiential learning to augment formal instruction is discussed. The author posits that the social shift from rural to urban life has created a youth population richer in information than in experience. Experiential learning is a means to compensate for this imbalance. Examples are given of successful programs such as Foxfire, which…

Three "deep structures" of the literary curriculum (contexts within which teachers teach literature) have been identified: (1) the imitative structure, in which students learn about the background of the text, (2) the analytic structure, and (3) the generative approach, dealing with a work's effect on readers. While experienced literary critics…

This study was designed to determine the relationships of student anxiety and dependency to the effects of teaching structure on the acquisition of science knowledge and processes within inductive/discovery learning. Teaching structure refers to the relative amounts of teacher and/or student control within the tasks. Randomly assigned fifth- and…

Systematically incorporated into classroom instruction in word analysis, word sorts provide a sensible alternative to phonics or whole-word approaches and are congruent with the meaning-based direction of today's basal reading programs. A word sort is an activity in which the learner arranges words printed on cards into groups. This technique can…

Discovery teaching advocates minimal teacher guidance. Materials from two curriculum development projects were evaluated with respect to this guidance. Results indicate a considerable discrepancy between curriculum intention and reality, as measured by the degree of teacher guidance afforded in the projects' instructional materials. (CP)

Maintains that traditional science education presents students with scientific facts to be memorized and then regurgitated on tests. In problem-posing science education the emphasis lies on understanding rather than on memorization; on attitudes and skills rather than on retained knowledge. Three sample lessons are given. (Author/BC)

Forty-three preschoolers learned the concept of one-to-one correspondence by matched discovery, expository, or observational learning. The groups did not differ on short-term recall and near transfer, but the discovery group excelled on far transfer and delayed recall. The effect of guided discovery on broader learning outcomes was also discussed.…

A useful approach for developing insights and discovering patterns is to examine numbers in relation to the number of their divisors. A teaching procedure for this approach is presented, with questions, answers, and homework suggestions. (MNS)

Argues in favor of the lecture method of presenting information to students. (FL)

This book presents a collection of essays on building collaborative communities in which democratic principles of education may be recognized, focusing on learning and teaching through inquiry. After (1) "The Development of a Community of Inquirers" (Gordon Wells), there are three parts. Part 1, "Inquiries in the Elementary…