Reports findings of study that examined the ways in which third, sixth, and ninth grade students made meaning when they were involved in reading and writing activities. (FL)

Describes six strategies for teaching vocabulary: exclusion brainstorming, knowledge rating, connect two, semantic feature analysis and semantic gradients, concept ladder, and predict-o-gram. (HOD)

Investigated level of concept attainment of selected energy concepts for possible inclusion in the Nigerian Primary Science Project. Subjects (N=450) were taught energy concepts at descriptive, comparative, and quantitative levels. Suggests the need to describe these levels for particular grades and match curriculum with students' thinking…

Describes examining seventh- and eighth-grade students' writing for both function and audience as they relate to learning and conceptual development. Includes examples illustrating how audience influenced students' understanding of concepts in a science class. (HTH)

Lists 15 commonly encountered misconceptions/misunderstandings in biology, together with specific suggestions to help teachers and textbook authors clarify each misconception. Included are problems related to understanding differences between acellular and multicellular, respiration and photosynthesis, egestion and excretion, and homeostasis and…

Reviews various sociological concepts of "rural" and the definitional problems related to occupational, sociocultural, ecological, and multidimensional conceptions of rurality. Describes and recommends multidimensional typologies developed by the United States Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Services and the Maine State Planning…

Basic concepts are often barriers to acquiring easy insight and satisfying understanding in a discipline. The most difficult task in the teaching of science is the recognition of these critical barriers to the student's thinking process. To make the unobvious less so is the responsibility of the teacher. (BC)

Describes two experiments that investigate the relationship between beginning readers' concept of word in text and their awareness of phonemes in spoken words. (HOD)

Explores cognitive shifts related to political thinking occurring during the period of concrete operational thought among 67 third, fourth, and fifth graders. Findings suggest that, while cognitive change related to political thinking characterizes the period between the grades, it does not always progress steadily. (RH)

Compares various methods of defining derived quantities, arguing for a definitional formula using base or fundamental units in a word equation, or symbol-equations with the symbols explained. Suggests that fundamental units be defined operationally or left regarded as intuitive as in the case of length and time. (JM)

Investigated learning of the energy concept during physics instruction in grades seven to 10, focusing on meanings of words (names of concepts) and tasks involving motion. Results indicate severe limitations of the impact of physics instruction on learning the concept. (JN)

Describes guided discovery and problem-solving programs, providing a buyer's guide for same. The guide includes program name, source, current price, type (such as learning module, simulation, adventure), brief description, and whether the program has graphics and sound effects. (JN)

In a reviewed series of spontaneous and learning-set studies of adults and children, adults solved problems even if they attended to four dimensions; young children failed when attending so broadly, but solved when attending to a single dimension. (Author/HS)

Students must be given a cognitive base and have a certain degree of familiarity with a design element in order to cope with materials during the creative process. During a recent outdoor education experience, art teachers found such concerns were minimized in terms of an art program. (Author/RK)

Reports a study which took an experimental look at two psychological areas of inquiry which have a bearing upon adult learning: retention and transfer of learning. Two kinds of instruction were adapted for use with adults: programmed learning and guided discovery learning. (WL)