In literature on problem-based learning (PBL), it is often difficult to determine whether the educational approach being described is actually PBL. Provides planners and assessors of PBL curricula with a framework for analysis. Educational activities can be categorized as PBL according to three core principles and four criteria concerning their…

Presents evidence against the use of standardized curricula and testing and in favor of discovery-based instruction. Describes a successful experience with a relatively new form of discovery-based instruction, the scenario educational computer software. (AEF)

In this article, the author shares a decade's worth of experience in developing an approach to teaching math to upper-elementary and middle school students that simultaneously increases basic skills, improves problem solving, raises test scores, and sparks student interest in math. Sections include: (1) Background Of Supermath; (2) Description Of…

In this study we investigate how prior knowledge influences knowledge development during collaborative discovery learning. Fifteen dyads of students (pre-university education, 15-16 years old) worked on a discovery learning task in the physics field of kinematics. The (face-to-face) communication between students was recorded and the interaction…

Fostering undergraduate research has increasingly become a focus of four-year institutions. Thus, given the maturity and capabilities of a substantial number of community college students, Virginia Community College System (VCCS) faculty can help students prepare for the baccalaureate by providing them with opportunities for actual research. With…

Growing Ideas, the National Gardening Association's series for elementary, middle, and junior high school educators, helps teachers engage students in using plants and gardens as contexts for developing a deeper, richer understanding of the world around them. This volume's focus is on hydroponics. It presents basic hydroponics information along…

Demonstration of chemical reactions is a tool used in the teaching of inorganic descriptive chemistry to enable students to understand the fundamental concepts of chemistry through the use of concrete examples. For maximum benefit, students need to learn through discovery to observe, interpret, hypothesize, and draw conclusions; however, chemical…

This study compared the effects of instructor-provided vs. learner-generated analyses of semantic relationships between major concepts on structural knowledge acquisition in an introductory psychology course. One group explained the relationships on instructor-provided graphic organizers; the other group classified relationships between concepts…

History and the social sciences can be defined as recorded narratives or stories about the past or present that describe change and continuity over time and seek to explain this change and continuity through a series of cause and effect propositions based on evidence and shaped by the scholar's social frame of reference. In social studies there…

The learning assistance counselor at the college level should facilitate learning for students who have not developed their cognitive and literacy skills. To enrich the process of discovery in student learning, the counselor can direct students in the following textbook activities: practicing basic syllabifying skills on technical and scientific…

As interest in open education has increased, so have demands for systematic evaluative research on its effects. There now exists a fairly sizable body of work on academic and psychological effects of open classroom teaching. In 1975, the author reviewed the relevant literature and summarized it in a monograph published by the North Dakota Study…

Three samples of 58 subjects each, selected from the students of seven eighth grade classes and matched with respect to scholastic achievement, program of study, and sex, were taught a foreign alphabet (Arabic) differently. Sample A was told the principles of the alphabet and applied it to examples; Sample B was given most examples first, then…

This study was designed to determine if students taking junior high school science would receive greater understanding and retention of science principles and procedures from the Earth Science Curriculum Project (ESCP) than would students taught grneral science via the lecture-demonstration method. No attempt was made to group the students (28 in…

The Thirteen College Curriculum Program is a cooperative venture involving predominantly Negro colleges and the Institution for Services to Education. The program is developing five new courses for the freshman year of college and two new courses for the sophomore year. The program consists of 100 students on each campus in the first-year program…

This book discusses new developments in the discipline of English. It contains six essays. In "The Ghetto of the Negro Novel: A Theme with Variations," Blyden Jackson explores why the setting of the Negro novel is in the city ghetto rather than in the rural Southland. Albert Marckwardt investigates the concept of "standard…