Expands the notion of the conceptual flowing theory developed in a previous study. Conceptual fluency theory suggests that learners have access to the conceptual structures inherent in the target language and culture in a systematic, sequential, and integrated fashion with other areas of language learning. (Author/VWL)

Describes an exploration into the concept of the rate of convergence in a university classroom. It is well known in mathematics that this concept leads to a modern construction of infinitesimals and their orders. (Author)

Describes the use of a new pedagogic approach to geology used to create a sequence of investigative activities enabling students to speculate, hypothesize, observe, test, reason, and infer about the characteristics of rocks. The approach is framed by two questions: (1) What are the key characteristics of different rock groups?; and (2) How did the…

Students in grades 2 (n=27), 4 (n=37), and 6 (n=28) were asked questions about artifacts or pictures. Their explanations, which revealed their understanding of such technological concepts as material properties and stability, were classified as naive, artifact related, or not artifact related. Explanations tended to cluster in a classification at…

Describes the development and assessment of instructional materials intended to improve student understanding of the concept of time in special relativity, the relativity of simultaneity, and the role of observers in inertial reference frames. Demonstrates the effect of the curriculum and illustrates the intense cognitive conflict as students are…

Presents a lesson to teach matrices that emphasizes conceptual understanding and allows students to extend their investigations into important and relevant situations by using graphing calculators after important conceptual understanding has been developed. (KHR)

Investigates the effects of conceptual assignments and conceptual change discussions on high school students' achievement and misconceptions about force and motion. Analyzes pretest and posttest data from the Force Misconception and Force Achievement Tests (FMFAT). Discusses the effects on the conceptual change discussion on reducing…

Points out the importance of students' pre-existing beliefs on students learning and suggests that if new information does not fit with what the students already knows, he or she may simply choose to reject it outright, leaving classrooms having learned nothing. Presents four choices for addressing new information. (Author/YDS)

Analytic conceptual skills result when students learn to decipher the detailed facts of a given situation and then synthesize those facts into a logically compelling and recognizable meaning. The Dialectical Experiential Analytic Conceptual Development model addresses five areas of skill through eight sets of activities. (Author)

Explains the difference between children's sensible reasoning and Piagetian conceptions of concrete reasoning. Children will modify their experiments to accommodate their beliefs long before they will change their beliefs to fit the evidence. Teachers should stress relevance, prediction, and consistency when resolving discrepancies between beliefs…

Independent high school geography courses are essential because of the subject's pan-scientific nature. Teachers need to develop a set of higher level geography learning objectives and a global perspective in the curriculum, allow adequate time to reinforce these objectives, and teach map-making and analysis. Texts should avoid the "Trivial…

Examined relationship between bulimia, conceptual complexity, obsessional symptoms, and obsessional traits in 54 college women classified as bulimic-anorexic vomiters, normal-weight bulimic vomiters, clinical controls, and normal controls. Found both bulimic groups exhibited significantly lower levels of conceptual functioning, significantly…

Focuses on the provision of meaningful counterintuitive experimental evidence for students while taking into account the relations of theory, instruments, and experimental data. Discusses the use of experiments designed to test pupils' conceptual framework during the teaching of introductory electricity. (JRH)

Definitions of adult education were analyzed in "Adult Education Quarterly" and its predecessors, 1929-1992, and in a professional association's handbook series, 1934-1990. Definitions clustered into three categories representing the field's development: (1) 1929-1945, no single definition, more inclusiveness; (2) 1946-1979, definition sought as…

Analyzes difficulties of students experiencing their first contact with heuristic hypotheses. Attempts to interpret these difficulties and suggest remediations. Uses an example from the chemistry of aqueous solutions. (MKR)