Provides a rationale for a learning environment in science classrooms that integrates science, mathematics, and technology while solving authentic problems. Describes activities that can be used in such an environment and presents data regarding students' attitudes toward the described activities. (MDH)

Describes how college science laboratory activities can be developed by student teams in which original questions are formulated as testable hypotheses and refined into experimental designs on the basis of personal observations. Distinguishes this "minds-on" approach from traditional college science laboratories with respect to students'…

This document examines how a unit on model rockets, designed to be a "hands-on" activity within the "Mission to Mars" curriculum that was implemented in the Nashville (Tennessee) area middle schools, has been used to investigate children's understanding of experimentation. A literature review explores some of the traditional…

Teaching cases have been utilized in professional training and can offer dramatic accounts of problems teachers may confront in the classroom. This case study examines a fact-based story of a third-grade teacher's confrontation with the mother of an African-American child who disagrees with the innovative approach utilized in her child's…

The case study presented in this paper describes the thinking-in-action of a first grade teacher who, within the natural setting of her classroom, was constructing a new way of teaching language arts by changing to a whole language approach. In contrast to traditional implementation models, this study highlights the constitutive nature of…

The Project's report on its second year gives a detailed description of the construction and trial of its innovative 8th-grade American History course. Local history and local and national contemporary problems were interwoven with the traditional content of American history. Teaching-learning methods and activities included film-viewing,…

Describes four activities for grade levels K-3, 4-5, and 6-8 and for the family that explore statistical concepts using a manipulative familiar to students-SKITTLES candies. Concepts explored include frequency graphs, data collection and analysis, probability, measures of central tendency, averaging, and correlation coefficients. Includes…

This study examined the effect of an experimental educational psychology course on preservice teachers' ideas about teaching. The experimental course immersed students in writing as a response to reading, writing to reflect on previous beliefs, and a teaching model to help students question their experiences and beliefs founded in previous school…

This book attempts to introduce students to the creative aspects of mathematics through exploratory problems. The introduction presents the criteria for the selection of the problems in the book. Criteria indicate that problems should: be immediately attractive, require data to be generated or gathered, appeal to students from junior high school…

This volume contains the Viewer's Guide to accompany the ten-part television series component of a multimedia instructional program on relationships among science, technology, and society. The major objective of the program is to make college level course material available to the general public through cooperation of newspapers, public…

A study is described of heuristic devices useful in learning both native and second languages. The study concerns particularly the means used by very young students (second and third graders) in vocabulary acquisition and in the establishment of semantic relationships. It was of concern to verify if (1) the children would use their knowledge of…

The introduction to this report traces the history of the Northampton History Project from its inception in the summer of 1967 to its close in 1970. Beginning with half the students of one junior high school and one teacher, the course prepared by the project is now required of all Northampton 8th graders and is taught by four specially trained…

The creation of an 8th-grade American history course and the training of teachers for the course are the goals of this project. Primarily a course in national history, it uses local (Northampton, Mass.) events and people as a key to understanding the larger national picture. The course objectives were to enable students to analyze, interpret, and…

The plea of this bulletin, the second and full revision of The Problems Approach and the Social Studies copyrighted in 1955 and 1960, is for teachers to do more with the reflective method in their classrooms. It draws upon the latest and most pertinent insights distilled from research, theory, and practice associated with reflective thinking;…

The study determined whether using outdoor experiences as a teaching medium increased the level of creative thought for sixth grade children. Four factors of creativity were measured: figural fluency, figural flexibility, figural originality, and figural elaboration. Two groups of sixth grade pupils, one experimental (with 30 children)and the…