This report explains an evaluative study of the conceptual and affective development of students associated with the Floating Lab Program, an experiential field project sponsored by the University of New Hampshire and the Maine Sea Grant Program. The field program involved an opportunity for students to have hands-on experiences aboard a 65-foot…

The findings of this study support the position that well designed and implemented concept lessons are more effective in facilitating concept acquisition and retention than the conventional means of teaching concepts presented in social studies textbooks. Participating in the study were 147 students randomly assigned to a two-day treatment…

This study explores a learning model which suggests that a concept is acquired first through manipulation of concrete objects followed by transformation of the concrete objects into semi-concrete representations, followed by internalization of the concept through abstract representations. Microcomputer simulations of manipulative activities were…

This 10-part resource book contains 54 articles which address topics related to helping students become effective thinkers. The articles are organized under these categories: (1) the need to teach students to think; (2) creating school conditions for thinking; (3) definitions of thinking (including goals for a critical thinking curriculum); (4) a…

In this survey, an attempt is made to summarize the perspective on so-called 'misconceptions' research of those whose work in this field has not been guided by learning theory. Following the terminology of Driver and Erickson (1983), this research is called 'problem-oriented' in this paper. Its epistemological assumptions and assumptions about…

In spite of the almost universal call for curriculum reform in science education that began over a decade ago, research indicates that very little change is actually happening in a large majority of schools. Perhaps the reason is that teachers need to see a relatively fast, easy way to get started. This article considers some desirable elements of…

The Conceptual Learning and Development (CLD) Model suggests four successive levels of concept learning: (1) concrete--recognizing an object which has been encountered previously; (2) identity--recognizing a known object when it appears in a different spatial, time, or sensory perspective; (3) classificatory--generalizing that two items are alike…

The Conceptual Learning and Development (CLD) Model suggests four successive levels of concept learning: (1) concrete--recognizing an object which has been encountered previously; (2) identity--recognizing a known object when it appears in a different spatial, time, or sensory perspective; (3) classificatory--generalizing that two items are alike…

Preschoolers' ability to understand grammatical relations in passives and to generalize was studied using animate referents. Three- to five-year-old children were taught to produce passive sentence descriptions of events in which animacy of the actor and acted-on object were varied. After pretesting to determine passive sentence comprehension, the…

Questions centered on the issue of how young children and others deal with gender and qustions focusing on gender development and developmental theory are posed. Numerous research findings bearing on the questions are reviewed. General topics addressed are the following: (1) classificatory discrimination of sex by physical cues, (2) gender…

A project, using a longitudinal survey, seeks to describe the cognitive content of the professional competence developed within the field of engineering, psychology, economics, and medicine. With the aid of several empirical studies, the project will hopefully clarify when and how changes occur in students' perceptions and patterns of thought,…

One in a series of books intended to help children improve their critical analytical skills, the document examines the concept of time in light of theories of philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Dewey. The document is presented in three chapters. Chapter one offers a critical analysis of time from the perspective that time is an unknown and…

This document contains chapters 4 and 5 of the final report of the Project on Social Architecture in Education. Chapter 4 provides a brief overview of the activities of the project in order to sketch the context out of which the case studies, conclusions, and learning materials emerged. Chapter 5 discusses and evaluates six major strands of…

Sociological literature on careers reveals that there are four major approaches framing career study, i.e., developmental, objective-empirical, normative, and interactive perspectives. Analysis of these approaches points to an orienting conceptualization of career based on the core characteristics of centrality, duration, and public…

The document presents information on planning, teaching, and evaluating multicultural education programs. Although most of the examples are based on current multicultural projects in New England, the authors believe that the material presented can also be useful to classroom teachers in other regions. The document contains two components. The…