Educational philosopher Jane Martin believes educators should reconceptualize the production-oriented schoolhouse as the "schoolhome," responsible for teaching both the three R's and the three C's: care, concern, and connection (the "reproductive" aspects of society). Personal development, collaborative problem solving, and student ownership are…

In full-service and community schools, principals must possess a collaborative attitude and strong boundary-spanning skills. Principals must believe that collaboration can address children's complex needs, be able to obtain and distribute information strategically, view problems imaginatively, craft solutions, and develop and support others'…

Collectively, technological literacy embraces everything from intelligent consumerism to concerns about environmental degradation, ethics, and elitism. Technological problem solving can have social, ecological, or technological goals and may be categorized by four types: invention, design, trouble shooting, and procedures. Every citizen should be…

The goal of technology education is universal technological literacy. Technology study in middle school must be more than an added science curriculum unit. Three instructional approaches predominate: student projects, technological problem solving (design under constraint), and modular technology education. The National Middle School Association's…

Using technology can empower students, but most U.S. schools fall short of this goal. The power of technology as related to other school subjects and problem solving is well documented in projects promoting integration of technology education with mathematics and science. National Science Education Standards are summarized. (26 references) (MLH)

Learning communities require diverse expertise among members, continual advancement of collective knowledge and skills, emphasis on learning how to learn, and mechanisms for sharing understanding. This article analyzes three learning-community models (Fostering a Community of Learners, Knowledge-Building Communities, and Lampert's Mathematics…

Solution-focused counseling (SFC) brings a positive, competency-based perspective to problems experienced by individuals and organizational systems. Instead of looking for what is wrong and how to fix it, this approach discovers what is already working and investigates how to use it. SFC employs five principles: a salutary centerpiece, exceptional…

Information is a commodity; those who are most successful can efficiently access it, critically evaluate and interpret it, and effectively and ethically apply it. Through collaboration, teachers and media specialists show students the connections between learning processes and how to apply them to problem solving or decision making. (MLH)

A committee of media specialists, librarians, teachers, parents, and administrators at a Minnesota district devised an information literacy curriculum. They identified current skills and software; learned an information-processing mode; identified curriculum integration areas; brainstormed projects; identified needed resources; and developed…

Research on high school students using the Perry scheme (progressing from dualism to multiplicity, contextual relativism, and dialectic reasoning) suggests gifted students are at least one stage ahead of their agemates. While most students are grasping the notion of unanswered questions, gifted students are seeking structures to help them explain…

Integrating multicultural activities into mathematics instruction at all grade levels helps to foster appropriate and desirable attitudes about mathematics and its role in our culture. Multicultural investigations in mathematics reveal that many practices common to today's classrooms (such as reasonable guessing) served as the basis for solving…

Because continuous learning and knowledge generation are core competencies in our ability to resolve the problems facing us as a world community, we must reject the efficiency model and embrace the emerging model of learning. Current schooling structures are counter to new brain/mind learning precepts. Learner-as-pioneer requires individuals to…

Describes the development of product design engineering, a successful student-centered interdisciplinary elective that blends critical thinking with curriculum integration, authentic assessment, practical problem solving, and hands-on engagement in a Virginia high school. The goal is to analyze the meaning of engineering as a profession and…

School programs in social and emotional education seek to increase student self-awareness, help students deal with their emotions and interpersonal relationships, and improve social decision-making abilities. A schoolwide social-education program at a Providence, Rhode Island, academy focuses on overall school climate, specially designed events…

Describes two projects featuring problem-oriented lessons and assignments. The Gallatin (Tennessee) High School Interdisciplinary Project was a four-year case study that investigated students' ability to make connections with their societal and school curriculum using self-selected cases, videodiscs, and literature. "Explorers of the Universe" is…