Self-worth-related consequences of success and failure for low and high performers under cooperative and competitive reward structure were compared in 282 middle school students solving puzzles. Results illustrate that, regardless of reward structure, success and failure play a critical role in reducing the impact of individual performance…

Examined longitudinally the cognitive and adaptive behavior development of children with disabilities and their families' adaptation over time. Found that children's type of disability predicted trajectories in development of cognition and social and daily living skills. Type of disability also predicted changes in maternal (but not paternal)…

Authored by the teaching staff of T-560: Meeting the Challenge of Individual Differences at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, this article reflects on potential applications of universal design for learning (UDL) in university courses, illustrating major points with examples from T-560. The article explains the roots of UDL in cognitive…

This technical assistance paper provides preschool planners and staff with information on developmental characteristics of preschool children relevant to planning and providing a quality preschool program. Following a case scenario underscoring the need for understanding child development, a theoretical framework concerning child development is…

One aspect of the Alverno College (Wisconsin) teacher education program focuses on the critical treatment (critical revisioning) of popular approaches to teaching across lines of race, class, gender, culture, and power. To illustrate the development of prospective students' ability to think critically about such teaching, this discussion explores…

A discussion of factors that influence English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) learning by native speakers of Chinese focuses on three specific factors (cognitive style, individual differences, and native language interference), and offers classroom solutions. The effect of each of the three factors on ESL comprehension and production is considered,…

This paper argues that school practices that put at-risk students and limited-English students with grade-appropriate students in heterogeneous groups may in fact be abusive and discriminatory. Significant access to instructional content can occur only if the material matches the skill level of the children. If a lesson is presented to a group of…

Faults of special education include its medical view of disability, its arbitrary division of students into handicapped and nonhandicapped, and the resultant separation between general and special education. Disabled adults are becoming less tolerant of an educational system that fails to recognize the capabilities of handicapped students.…

Because discussions of educational problems seem to be retracing the same paths and problems, there is need to identify and define the enduring controversies in education and explore reasons for their currency. These issues are discussed in a historical context. The questions of what sort of education is of most worth and what subjects should be…

Values are important in understanding what a person wants from life, from work, and from the various roles that one plays in life. This study examined the most and least popular values chosen by diverse groups of people: 9,650 U.S. students in grades 7 through 12; 2,925 U.S. college freshmen; 571 Spanish-speaking Americans from Massachusetts and…

A ten-year research effort, conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), explored the relative merits and failings of different national systems of education in the United States and in Western and Eastern Europe. The first section of this report deals with trends in American education as seen…

A study was done to investigate the relationship between a selected set of personality dimensions and the propensities of supervisors to use varying levels of both positive and negative reinforcements. Data were collected during exercises involving 129 male undergraduate business students carried out in a behavioral laboratory wherein a…

This annotated bibliography focuses on the ethological study of child development and the educational process. Topics covered include: (1) evolution; (2) dominance hierarchies and social organization; (3) agonistic, affiliative, and epistemic behaviors; (4) nonverbal communication; (5) play; (6) biological constraints on learning; and (7) relevant…

The many dimensions of individual differences that make each learner a challenge to the foreign language teacher are discussed. The teacher must interpret the information and provide differentiated environments to "match" these differences. Emphasis is placed upon learning styles and learning strategies. An historical perspective of adapting…

ADDRESSED TO TEACHERS, THE BOOK EMPHASIZES THE INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES OF CHILDREN, ENCOURAGES PROBLEM SOLVING OR DIAGNOSTIC TEACHING, AND MAKES CONCRETE SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS OF CHILDREN WTH LEARNING DIFFICULTIES. THE ROLE OF THE SCHOOL IN PROVIDING FOR EACH CHILD'S NEEDS IS DISCUSSED, AND SUGGESTIONS ARE GIVEN FOR MAKING THE CLASSROOM A…