The teaching of decision-making, problem-solving, and higher-order thinking skills is necessary to ensure adaptability to our world of accelerated change. Living skills in the technology and information age will include the understanding and application of higher level thinking skills, which will be the educational "basics" of tomorrow.…

The basic premise of this paper is that effective teacher training programs need to assist students in reaching beyond competence in subject matter and instructional methodology to focus on developing the prospective teacher's capacity to recognize and utilize the cognitive processes underlying the respective categories of the curriculum. A…

This article suggests that acceleration and enrichment programing for gifted and talented students have differing approaches to problem solving (well-structured problems in acceleration and ill-structured problems in enrichment). To prevent learning mutually exclusive problem-solving strategies, an integrated approach is advocated. (DB)

The paper's purpose is to clarify and develop some theoretical and practical implications of the concept of critical thinking, and the field of social studies is used as one example of the problem. The work of four leading critical theorists (Robert Ennis, Harvey Siegel, Michael Scriven, and R. S. Peters) is described and a distinction is made…

Suggests methods for achieving creativity, including divergent and convergent thinking, in engineering education. Discusses creativity exercises, creating an atmosphere hospitable to creativity, and identifying the creatively gifted. (YP)

Posits that any model of creative thinking in music must deal with how factual content in music serves as the foundation for the creative process. Maintains that music technology is an exciting and meaningful avenue for both convergent and divergent thinking but that creative thinking can occur without technology. (KM)

Given that the society has not been able to redistribute financial support away from day and sheltered programs, it needs to cut off the supply of consumers. To make this happen, Rusch and Braddock offered two recommendations in their study: (1) All students must leave high school either competitively employed or admitted to a postsecondary…

Discusses how environmental education (EE) can provide opportunities for development of higher order thinking skills such as learning critically and creatively, and learning to think in an integrated manner--in terms of identifying alternatives, using multiple sources, designing novel approaches, and identifying real and potential solutions.…

Tautologies in student essays, arguments that most commonly assume the truth or self-evidence of themselves without relationship to something other than themselves, can be identified whenever an essay contains a series of nonsuccessive, noncumulative discourse units. Three kinds of tautologies in student papers are tautologies of redundancy,…

Examines some of the assumptions associated with attempts to define the "engineering method." Critiques a previously stated definition of this method, and offers an alternative definition that attempts to include the ideas put forth in the previous definition. Discusses the use of engineering heuristics in both definitions. (TW)

The contemporary university can do great good through its insistence that students both engage in issues and questions of the current "cultural emergency" and develop the abilities to abate it. Universities must recognize and support those trends and movements that support the emergence of integrative thinking, global perspective, and compassion.…

The first section of this two-part document, The Hermeneutic Struggle: A Teaching Method, explores the author's pedagogical explanation of a hermeneutic approach to teaching philosophy. According to the article, the teacher should come to the classroom and be able to approach the subject matter from the perspective of the beginner, yet, at the…

Research has revealed distinct differences in the problem-solving approaches of high- and low-aptitude students. As a consequence, content area teachers can focus on thinking skills by having students describe their mental processes and giving them feedback on erroneous or incomplete reasoning. (TE)

Whether the aim has been to understand the nature of creativity or to determine its development, researchers have formulated a number of measures of creativity. A glut of results and conclusions actually hinders an educational understanding of the term creativity. The most widely known tests of creativity incorporate divergent-thinking, as opposed…

Current writings on the functions of the left and right hemispheres of the brain are examined, focusing upon possible implications for improving present educational techniques. It has been generally accepted by researchers that the organizational and verbalizing processes are functions of the left cerebral hemisphere, while creative and intuitive…