This article presents a review of the "Process Assessment of the Learner-Second Edition" (PAL-II), an individual or group-administered instrument designed to assess the cognitive processes involved in academic tasks in kindergarten through sixth grade. The instrument allows the examiner to identify reasons for underachievement and…

Results indicate that subjects are not able to work within a closed abstract system before they have attained the capacity for formal-operational reasoning. (RB)

Second of two articles on "Cardboard Carpentry .

Intended for practitioners, this book provides a valuable resource by offering teachers a volume of practical exercises for introducing and reinforcing a variety of fundamental thinking skills. Each exercise allows teachers and students in grades six through nine to focus on a selected thinking skill while serving as a stimulant for thoughtful…

Discussed is a project based upon the idea that children are best taught through the sensory channel to which they are most responsive. (LS)

Discussion about (1) introducing young children to global concepts, (2) carefully choosing instructional materials to further global concepts, and (3) how a child's viewpoint can affect his perception of global concepts. (ND)

This paper describes the use of commercially-available software for the Apple Computer to augment diagnostic evaluations of learning disabled children and to enhance "learning to learn" strategies at the application/transfer level of learning. A short rationale discusses levels of evaluation and learning, using a model that synthesizes the ideas…

The field tested sixth grade instructional unit was designed to explore learning in its broadest sense, involving the learners in activities dealing with what learning is, where they learn, and how they learn. The seven lessons deal with defining learning and knowing, exploring learning experiences both in and out of school, learning as it is…

Discusses the process of designing a series of case-based interactive videodiscs to be used within a constructivist learning environment for elementary school science. Topics include assumptions about learners and learning; implications for learning materials; and implications for the instructional design process, including process-based versus…

This publication is developed for grades K-6 as a curriculum guide for the Science/Social Studies Program. The introduction gives purpose and structure of program, format of each unit, sequence of each lesson and key to abbreviated organization or project titles. A map, which orders the units according to grade level and defines the skills, is…

Learning is an active, constructive and collaborative process, where people construct knowledge from their experiences in the world. People construct new knowledge with particular effectiveness when they engage in constructing personally meaningful products, that is meaningful to themselves or to others around them. The construction of knowledge…

In conjunction with oral instruction in social studies, students were assigned to one of five organizer treatment conditions. Treatment conditions consisted of an advance or a post organizer presented visually or orally. Results indicated that nonwritten cognitive organizers facilitated both the learning and the retention of oral instruction.…

Visual organizers also called graphic organizers, formal organizers, and visual strategies are visual representations of concepts and ideas. When used in classrooms, they provide students with tools to make thought and organizational processes visible, and they serve as organizational frameworks to promote thinking and language development. This…