Explores the idea that play is one of the fundamental processes by which children develop their understanding of the world by looking at play as an intrinsically motivated activity. (WRM)

Suggests gardening to help middle school students improve their problem solving and mental abilities. Focuses on the benefits of having a school nutrition garden, and indicates that students can learn about the importance of a healthy diet and share their peers' cultural heritage by growing ethnic foods. Recommends an animal garden to observe…

Experiments with exercises that are distinguished from those employed with elite students by reducing competition and increasing cooperation through the use of tests against nature, large dynamic ranges in performance, initial prototype designs, and alternative methods of recording and presenting results. Finds that formulating easily understood…

Examines mother, father, and youth questionnaire reports on family problem solving in 55 Asian American and Pacific Island American families. Results indicate that perceptions linked to the respondent's family role best accounted for the ratings' pattern. Predictive validity depended on family role: mothers' perceptions predicted delinquency and…

Details a project in which students explore and study the poisons in their environment by asking and finding answers to their own research questions. Includes some suggestions for involving students successfully in inquiry-based learning. (DDR)

Discusses the needs of freshmen chemical engineering students in terms of courses related to the field. Describes the nature and content of a course designed to involve freshmen in a chemical engineering curriculum. (DDR)

Discusses how adolescents are defining their need for "safe spaces" in ways useful to the current policy debate about community safety. It reveals adolescent's greater interest in preserving public spaces and youth programs and offers new insights into the causes of youth crime. Reasons for cooperative efforts to define and explore…

In four experiments involving 357 undergraduates, students who read expository passages with seductive details (interesting but irrelevant details) recalled fewer main ideas and generated fewer problem-solving transfer solutions than those who read passages without seductive details. Results suggest that seductive details may prime inappropriate…

Considers derivation of the strategy concept and its deployment as a managerial planning technique. Examines the related growth of school development planning, exploring ways it might be considered strategic. Using strategy in organizations is no longer either possible or appropriate. Proposes an alternative planning basis derived from marginal…

Uses data from a survey of Perth lower secondary science teachers to reveal low levels of inquiry and determine the nature of the laboratory work undertaken by their students. Contains 29 references. (DDR)

Presents ideas for an assessment that reflects the curriculum standards set forth by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). Discusses how assessment tasks are created to support instruction that values a mastery of the basics, mental mathematics, mathematical vocabulary, problem solving and writing in mathematics, calculator…

The role played on shallow and deep levels of comprehension by text changes aimed at improving relationships within text ideas or producing better links with the reader's knowledge were studied with 67 Spanish 10th graders. Both textual changes contributed separately to recall, but problem solving increased only when the two were presented…

Describes a year-long project for upper elementary-middle school students that incorporates mathematics, language skills, problem solving, and economics in a classroom business. Outlines the 13-step process that the author's students followed in planning and running a classroom candy store. (SR)

Demonstrates the Toulmin model as a problem-solving approach for administrators considering connecting their schools to the Internet. Using moral reasoning, a proposal to connect the school to the Internet is explored. The Internet in schools today, value judgments and principles, qualifications to the proposition, and media literacy are…

Argues that Lewis diagrams can be easily done by students using a minimal number of clues. Presents a method to draw the Lewis structure of molecules, polyatomic ions, and radicals whereby students no longer need to move bonds or lone pairs of electrons. (DDR)