This action guide is designed to help students and teachers become aware of the concepts and issues of waste management, and to motivate them to action in the classroom, school, home, and community. The guide emphasizes interdisciplinary activities that concentrate on the process of problem solving. Activities are identified by appropriate grade…

Developed by educators at the Emily Griffith Opportunity school, this teacher's guide presents a 2-hour workshop to introduce employees in entry-level positions to the concepts and vocabulary of Total Quality Management (TQM). The guide is divided into an instructor's section and a section of 24 handouts for the participants. (Handouts can also be…

This book is the second of a three-volume series on conflict resolution for educational administrators. Following the introduction, the first three chapters discuss the following communication skills critical to communication--building rapport, listening and pacing, and chunking and problem solving. Chapter 4 provides a generic problem-solving…

Incident identification graphs can be used to diagnose areas of difficulty in a subject's problem-solving schema at the episodic level. In this study, 22 subjects (2 experts and 20 novices) categorized into five problem-solving groups (expert, high algorithmic/high conceptual, low algorithmic/high conceptual, high algorithmic/low conceptual, and…

Problem posing is a tool for developing and strengthening critical thinking skills. Freire expanded on the idea of active, participatory education through problem-posing dialogue, a method that transforms the students into critical coinvestigators in dialogue with the teacher. Problem posing begins by listening for students' issues. Teachers…

This essay looks at training nurses in British Columbia (Canada) to be critical thinkers through the use of nurses' narrative notes of patient care. The paper argues that the registered nurse can use the Nursing Process, a nursing problem solving framework that relies on the nurse's ability to think logically, to critically reflect on care…

The purpose of this study is to analyze the perceived thought processes of several students as they learn, and then attempt to solve problems about chemical equilibrium. Four tenth grade students in Taipei, Taiwan, were audiotaped as they individually attempted to solve problems. The problems were such that they required more than mere recall or…

This document presents a critical analysis of two of the most popular types of programs that schools have implemented to prevent violence among students: (1) mediation programs, and (2) conflict resolution curricula. While both promote interpersonal skills necessary to prevent violence, their effectiveness has not been evaluated adequately. These…

This paper discusses the use of in-basket items, typical of what school administrators would face on the job, and small-group activities to encourage the novice (graduate students in school administration) to exhibit behaviors that result from reflective thought. The process involves classroom exercises that simulate situations typical of school…

This study examines executive function and its relationship to attention dysfunction and working memory. It attempts to document the manifestations of executive function problems in school-related extended processing tasks, such as verbal problem-solving in math and reading of extended passages. Subjects (in grades 1-12) included 49 children with…

The meeting reported here was held to address the issues related to the increasing numbers of foreign students in Japan (31,000 in 1989 and increasing annually by 20%). First, profiles of the speakers and the texts of their speeches are presented, as well as the comments made during the panel discussions and symposium sessions. Speakers from 11…

This practicum was designed to improve preschool, kindergarten, and first grade teachers' group decision making skills in order to encourage program continuity from grade to grade in schools in a culturally diverse metropolitan area. A second aim was to use shared skill building to reduce isolation and improve problem solving among preschool and…

This paper reports on a study of situational influences of affect and goal value on social problem-solving in middle childhood. It was expected that the adequacy of any particular social problem-solving process would be reduced by increases in goal intensity. On the basis of prior testing, two social goals of high value and two of low value were…

This paper provides an introduction to a particular systems-theoretical approach to problem-solving in the management of education usually referred to as soft-systems methodology (SSM), developed by Peter Checkland in the 1970s. SSM should provide a powerful tool for managers in education at any level who have a strategic role because it can be…

This document examines the current difficult situation in Peru in light of its historical past. It gives students the opportunity to relate to the problems that the majority of Peruvians are facing and to see how Peru's people are working together for solutions. The text deals with contemporary issues such as the greenhouse effect, the loss of the…