The handouts from the Ohio conference PACE (Positive Approaches to Children's Education) VI are presented. Among them are: (1) "Hugs" (submitted by A. Braselton); (2) "Rhythmic Activities for 2001" (L. Hardman); (3) "A Strategy for Cognitive Development in Physical Education" (C. Regimal); (4) "It's the Kids That…

Constructivism has received considerable attention in educational scholarship, practitioner preparation, and policy formation. This Digest identifies major forms of constructivism, considering issues and challenges that surface when implementing constructivist approaches to preservice and inservice teacher education. Constructivism is an…

This study investigated the perceptions of kindergarten teachers and Project Head Start teachers on how well Head Start students are prepared emotionally, socially, intellectually, and physically for kindergarten. The sample included 12 kindergarten teachers and 12 Head Start teachers in a county school system located in northeast Tennessee. The…

This research explores the moment-by-moment understanding students exhibit in the learning of a non-physical science domain--the human circulatory system. The goal was to understand how students learn by capturing the nature of their initial mental models (naive conceptions), and by seeing how new information gets assimilated into their mental…

College students who have had Advanced Placement (AP) English in high school often present motivational or other problems for instructors of first-year college composition. These students often resist instruction or have difficulty working successfully in writing groups with peers. However, often these students' work is not outstanding or even…

This article discusses the Cognitive Enrichment Network Model (COGNET) of elementary school instruction developed at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. This model is largely based on the theory of mediated learning experience (MLE) developed by Israeli psychologist Reuven Feuerstein, which posits that learning is closely connected to…

This study presents a quantitative method for scoring concept maps generated by students learning introductory college chemistry. Concept maps measure the amount of chemical information the student possesses, reasoning ability in chemistry, and specific misconceptions about introductory and physical chemistry concepts. They provide a visualization…

This paper addresses issues in integrating higher order thinking into the general curriculum. Data are based on a series of telephone interviews conducted in April and May 1992 with six leading thinkers in educational reform. They included: (1) Michael Apple, John Bascom Professor of Curriculum, Instruction, and Educational Policy Studies at the…

Tutor training programs in composition which emphasize interpersonal skills while offering concentrated correctness doses of mechanics and grammar are inherently limiting. While interpersonal skills are important, they only superficially address the complex situation of tutoring. A prescription for a healthy tutor program, one which would allow…

This paper examines how levels of cognitive development affect participants'"adequateness" or ability to function in adventure groups. Twenty-three women who were newly elected or appointed officers of a university campus sorority participated in the study. Prior to the group experience, participants completed a paragraph-completion exercise to…

In this paper four programs are described in which children learn multidigit number concepts and operations with understanding: (1) the Supporting Ten-Structured Thinking projects, (2) the Conceptually Based Instruction project, (3) Cognitively Guided Instruction projects, and (4) the Problem Centered Mathematics Project. The diversity in these…

An examination of the interaction of social and cultural influences on body image development may yield an explanation for the development of eating disorder behavior, especially in understanding the special problems facing women athletes. There appear to be two major sociocultural factors influencing the development of body image in the…

Assisting students in the development of their ability to think has long been a basic goal of education. Creative thinking and critical thinking have been defined jointly as higher-order thinking based on fact and logic, insight and empathy; they are seen as necessary for problem solving, invention, and achievement. Because the primary goal of…

A research project explored the idea that reasoning develops in distinct phases of thinking as individuals journey from simplistic learning of facts to highly proficient consequence predicting of integrated relationships. These results were derived from a study that examined the thinking processes and problem-solving actions of 13 students and…

Although a psychological theory of stages of transformation in human development currently exists, organizational researchers have yet to elaborate and test any theory of organizational transformation of comparable elegance. According to the organizational stage theory being developed since 1974 by William Torbert, bureaucratic organization, which…