Many educators assume that close links between schooling and everyday experience are necessary for students to be motivated and to learn. That assumption should be reconsidered. To promote equality of opportunity and to develop scientific understanding, schools should help students break with everyday experience. Cognitive researchers recognize…

Student knowledge in a subject area prior to and after instruction has traditionally been assessed by administering a pre- and post-test, usually multiple choice, though recent studies criticize the use of even the best-constructed multiple choice tests. This study assessed college freshmen's knowledge before and after a laboratory experience in…

Designed to focus attention on the design process in such computer science activities as information systems design, database design, and expert systems design, this paper examines three main phases of the design process: understanding the context of the problem, identifying the problem, and finding a solution. The processes that these phases…

This publication contains 24 studies which focus on: the fostering of inquiry in secondary school science laboratories; realistic expectations for traditional laboratory work; a content-based, college-level science course for all students; understanding learning at the classroom level; transitions and student task involvement; a project to…

Designed for preschool deaf/hearing impaired children whose developmental abilities range from 18 months through 5 years, this experiential curriculum uses a total communication approach in which language development is promoted in a natural setting. The guide is offered as a framework for teachers to use in developing their own individualized…

It is becoming increasingly important to teach students higher-order thinking skills in addition to mere factual knowledge. Recent scientific and technological advances offer significant opportunities to implement more effective teaching of these skills. By investigating intellectual processes, cognitive science has led to a significantly better…

Perspectives on the need for consistency in considering the promotion of conceptual change in science students and teachers (and in some circumstances, researchers) are presented in this paper. The parallels between the consequences of this consistency and the literature on educational change are also highlighted. A particular focus is directed to…

Two experiments with 167 first-, third-, and fifth-grade children revealed age-related changes in the composition of natural categories. Categorization was investigated via perceptual similarities of objects and conceptual similarities of superordinate classes. The free-classification paradigm (Garner, 1974) was adapted to natural categories,…

Currently, professionals disagree about whether children should be informed about their illnesses and the possibility of their deaths. Some experts feel discussion of these subjects would only upset the children while others feel this knowledge is the children's right and will allay the children's anxieties. What is needed but not available is…

College students who were either monolingual speakers of English or bilingual Hispanics participated in two studies dealing with the comprehension of sentences containing negations. Both the influence of different sentence constructions on comprehension, as well as the heuristics and misconceptions exhibited by subjects as they attempted to…

A constructivist analysis of the concepts of communication and environment may go against the traditional ideas of realists. Both concepts are treated as subjective constructs of a cognizing agent. It is held that the basis of the constructivist theory of knowing as the idea that knowledge is a mapping of ways of acting and thinking and the result…

This study on how teachers learn from experience to teach, explores teachers' recognitions of and responses to puzzles and surprises in the classroom when they involve coming to see in new ways the classroom setting and their personal role within it. Interview and observation data from four teachers provided the information for an analysis of this…

The two studies detailed in this paper investigated the effects of adaptive sequencing of examples and adaptive feedback on concept learning using computer-based instruction. In the first study, two groups of undergraduate students progressed through a set of five behavior management concepts presented in the rational set generator framework.…

Although three types of foreign language program exist in elementary schools (immersion, partial immersion, and core courses), there is no conclusive evidence as to what length of instruction time results in greater student achievement. A logical approach to foreign language teaching at the elementary level is one that integrates foreign language…

Acknowledging a growing national awareness of the need for direct instruction in higher order thinking skills within public education, this paper describes an instructional model for reinforcing thinking skills in the classroom, kindergarten through grade 12. Following an introduction justifying the model's reliance on the processing of…