Although mastering the art of learning how to learn is considered one of the most important skills for young people, few teens know the basics of how to best learn something. And teachers rarely receive training in how to helps students become successful learners. The author describes seven well-supported techniques for learning anything that…

"Number the Stars" by Lois Lowry is a popular historical novel for adolescent readers about the Nazi occupation of Copenhagen, Denmark during World War II and the efforts of Danish resisters who successfully rescued 98% of that nation's Jewish population. While this 1998 book is considered to be a fictional account, most of the events in…

The design and use of a chemistry practice exam instrument that includes a measure for student mental effort is described in this paper. Use of such an instrument can beneficial to chemistry students and chemistry educators as well as chemical education researchers from both a content and cognitive science perspective. The method for calculating…

The instructional approach used in this teaching idea involves high-level cognitive and affective learning rather than passive learning through lecture, which often is the traditional, and ineffective, approach for students being educated about drugs. Objectives: At the conclusion of this drug education teaching strategy, students will be able to:…

In this article, the author presents five problems that are representative of some of the "movie problems" that he has used on tests in various courses, including reactor design, heat transfer, mass transfer, engineering economics, and fluid mechanics. These problems tend to be open-ended. They can be challenging and can often be worked a variety…

Negative stress in physical education can reduce a student's enjoyment of physical activity and destroy the individual's desire to be a lifelong mover. The purpose of this article is to explore the concept of stress in physical education. Stress is defined as a substantial imbalance between the demand of a situation and the individual's capability…

The purpose of this research is to investigate students' cognitive behaviour in the subjects of function, limit, and derivative according to gender. The research was conducted with the participation of 67 female and 58 male 11th grade students of Gazi High School in Eskisehir in the academic year 2000/2001. The data were obtained through a test…

Four worksheets are given to enhance the understanding of and facility with numerical concepts and relations for students in grades seven through nine. The focus is on enhancing deductive reasoning abilities with Venn diagrams and arrow diagrams. Teaching ideas are included. (MNS)

Increasingly, national stakeholders express concern that U.S. college graduates cannot adequately solve problems and think critically. As a set of cognitive abilities, critical thinking skills provide students with tangible academic, personal, and professional benefits that may ultimately address these concerns. As an instructional method, writing…

Describes materials mastery and symbolic development as two discrete but related processes that preschool children learn. Uses the preschool setting to identify the developmental stages of construction play. (AS)

Discusses the use of advance organizers in elementary geography instruction. Asserts that maps and globes can be used as advance organizers to improve learning about geographic locations and regions. Provides two classroom activities with accompanying data charts to illustrate the technique. (CFR)

The game "Pythagoras" is an adaptation of the tangram puzzle. Describes the process of finding all the possible convex polygons with seven sides to prove that the solution to a given puzzle shape of seven sides difficult to find was not possible. (MDH)

Challenges the readers comprehension of mathematical induction by presenting four examples of arguments that misrepresent the concept. Discusses the reasons why the arguments lead to false conclusions. (MDH)