To help students organize and integrate new information with past knowledge, college reading teachers can offer students cognitive schemata that sort information into general and specific concepts. Without this ability, students will be unable to comprehend, analyze, synthesize, interpret, or transfer information. In addition, they will be unable…

The development of children's understanding of the learning process and factors that affect learning was explored with a sample of 18 children from 6 to 13 years of age. Subjects were interviewed, and three levels of their reasoning were identified. The 6- to 7-year-old subjects viewed learning as "doing" and reasoned that…

This workshop is based upon work and findings of the Learning in Science Project, a research project which investigated problems and difficulties in the teaching and learning of science. The workshop program, including activities which have been shown to impact on teacher thinking, is designed to focus attention on learning problems in classrooms,…

Children's nonschool learning provides a foundation for school instruction and problem-solving. Examples of nonschool learning are taken from various cultures. This study examines what young children know about written numerals in their everyday environment, how they come to understand the meaning of written numerals, and how they use this…

This paper reports on a study which was designed to teach language skills and concepts to kindergarten children who had entered school with serious language deficiencies. The study's objectives were to: (1) provide the opportunity for interaction between child and adult; (2) encourage the development of concepts through concrete experiences,…

After a review of the literature on cognitive "cause maps" in organizational decision-making, this study describes a midwestern elementary school from the perspective of individual sensemaking, captured through individual cognitive maps of cause-effect relationships. Data were collected with an adaptation of Bougon's (1983) Self-Q…

Leaders in mathematics education are calling for a reorganization of the mathematics curriculum around concept development and problem solving. For many elementary teachers, the limitations of their knowledge about mathematics and teaching mathematics constrains their ability to teach conceptually. If prospective elementary teachers are to…

A model is proposed for facilitating the application of knowledge to practice in education, constructed around a theory of the use of concepts in the various contexts of professional practice. A definition of the term "educational practice" as it is generally understood is followed by a discussion of concepts as instruments for developing…

The computer packages of PLOTALL, SYMAP, SURFACE II, QUSMO, QUSMO2, QUCRS, and QUTAB are commercially available plotting programs that provide aids for visualizing spatial distributed data and concepts. The incremental drum and line printer plots communicate often vast and difficult-to-interpret tabular data with or without geographic coordinates.…

This manual describes the model--specifically the observation procedures and coding systems--used in a longitudinal study of how children learn to comprehend what they read, with particular emphasis on science texts. Included are procedures for the following: identifying students; observing--recording observations and diagraming the room; writing…

Perspectives regarding the "information-oriented" approach of conservative, traditional philosophy and an approach to philosophy known as "conceptual therapy" are offered. The former emphasizes scholarship, textual explication and criticism, and, in general, a knowledge of the views of traditional thinkers. Philosophy as conceptual therapy seeks…

There has been little agreement regarding appropriate definitions of social anxiety. Many existing definitions are conceptually problematic and these problems have had serious methodological implications. Social anxiety may be defined as anxiety resulting from the prospect or presence of interpersonal evaluation in real or imagined social…

Fundamental to any critical reading process is the ability of the child to recognize and identify assumptions concerning the world in which he or she lives and brings to the printed page. The unconscious and implicit understandings that a reader and an author hold can fill the slots of developing schemata and become embedded and subsumed in…

Everyday life provides individuals with countless opportunities for observing and interacting with objects in motion. Although everyone presumably has some sort of knowledge about motion, it is by no means clear what form(s) this knowledge may take. The research described in this paper determined what sorts of knowledge are in fact acquired…

This paper is mainly devoted to reviewing past research on music development. Some recommendations for future research on music development and for improving music education for preschool children are also included. The developmental theories of Jean Piaget are discussed in detail, with special attention being given to concepts important to…