The accountability movement has forced educators to expend energys during the past few years ensuring that students master a developmental sequence of skills in the major content areas. In mathematics this has resulted in an emphasis upon computational proficiency, and, in the view of many mathematics educators, not enough time has been spent on…

When one encounters a problem that one has no adequate way of representing, a new mental model for the problem may have to be found. When a possible model is found, an important next step is to evaluate the validity of the model. In this document, examples of subjects finding and evaluating mental models used as problem representations are…

This report enumerates the activities of the Educational Technology Center (ETC) during 1987. The guide's theme for the year was Teaching with Technology. The report includes brief descriptions of five different types of research projects by area. In science education, the projects concerned with weight and density, heat and temperature, and the…

Although evaluation plays many roles in schools--support for administrative decision-making, curriculum improvement, staff development, public relations, instruction, counseling, diagnosing problems for students and staff, planning--recent studies of school district evaluation practices indicate that little overall consistency exists in the form…

This book is a collection of 21 articles by mathematics teacher Ernest Ranucci (1912-1976) grouped into five categories: (1) "Patterns" (for developing inductive reasoning skills); (2) "Mathematics in the World Around Us"; (3) "Spatial Visualization"; (4) "Inventiveness in Geometry"; and (5) "Games to Learn By", which demonstrates that mathematics…

This document contains the course syllabus and 12 independent practice modules for a college pre-calculus course designed as the second course in a two-semester sequence for students in a Bachelor of Technology program. The course emphasizes applications from technology and verbal problems. Topics include trigonometric functions; identities;…

The first Earth Day was held on April 22, 1970. This monograph is an attempt to analyze the environmental improvement efforts since that time, with emphasis on environmental education and environmental studies. It is claimed that environmental policies developed over the past 17 years have failed to incorporate adequately the human dimension in…

Higher order thinking skills are inevitably developed or exercised relative to some discipline. The discipline may be formal or informal, may or may not be represented in a school curriculum, or relate to a wide variety of domains. Moreover, the development or exercise of thinking skills may take place at differing levels of generality. This paper…

This instructor's guide is part of a series of program materials for a school-based intervention process to help at-risk students stay in school. This instructor book, a related student book, and a videotape called "A Time of Choices" comprise the classroom component of this set of materials focusing on awareness and commitment. It addresses the…

This book combines suggestions for the teaching of problem solving with activities and carefully discussed non-routine problems which students should find interesting as they gain valuable experience in problem solving. The over 300 activities and problems have been gleaned from a variety of sources and have been classroom tested by practicing…

In a project led by Research for Better Schools (RBS), educators work with researchers to improve basic skills learning. Based on research findings relating the amount of time allocated for instruction and student achievement, one school made scheduling changes to reduce the time spent moving from one classroom to another. Other classroom…

The 21 essays in this two-part book provide conceptual and operational understanding of the nature of models as representations of reality and as tools for description, analysis, interpretation, and forecasting. Topic areas addressed in part 1 (concept) include: the nature of models; the earth as a system; the determination of form; some…

Traditionally, school-based approaches to remediating deficits in social competence have focused on building aspects of temperament and character. The Socially Adept Verbalizations of Youth (SAVY) Curriculum, consisting of a series of exercises and activities, preceded by brief introductory lessons, was designed to develop social judgment skills…

Much criticism is being leveled today at the teaching profession, both for failure to provide students with high levels of cognitive functioning, and for failure to apply careful and systematic thinking to the execution of the many demanding instructional tasks required of the teacher's role. A special pilot study tested the effects of a…

The problem-solving mode of teaching science implies change for teachers, administrators, state education departments, and other individuals charged with implementing educational innovation. This study provides a descriptive record and interpretation of the words and actions of an elementary school teacher beginning to learn about teaching science…