An accessible introduction to some of the cognitive issues important for thinking and learning in scientific or other complex domains (such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, engineering, or expository writing), with practical educational applications and implementation methods. Many students find it difficult to learn the kind of knowledge and thinking required by college or high school courses in mathematics, science, or other complex domains. Thus they often emerge with significant misconceptions, fragmented knowledge, and inadequate problem-solving skills. Most instructors or textbook authors approach their teaching efforts with a good knowledge of their field of expertise but little awareness of the underlying thought processes and kinds of knowledge required for learning in scientific domains. In this book, Frederick Reif presents an accessible coherent introduction to some of the cognitive issues important for thinking and learning in scientific or other complex domains (such as mathematics, science, physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, or expository writing). Reif, whose experience teaching physics at the University of California led him to explore the relevance of cognitive science to education, examines with some care the kinds of knowledge and thought processes needed for good performance; discusses the difficulties faced by students trying to deal with unfamiliar scientific domains; describes some explicit teaching methods that can help students learn the requisite knowledge and thinking skills; and indicates how such methods can be implemented by instructors or textbook authors. Writing from a practically applied rather than predominantly theoretical perspective, Reif shows how findings from recent research in cognitive science can be applied to education. He discusses cognitive issues related to the kind of knowledge and thinking skills that are needed for science or mathematics courses in high school or colleges and that are essential prerequisites for more advanced intellectual performance. In particular, he argues that a better understanding of the underlying cognitive mechanisms should help to achieve a more scientific approach to science education.

The purpose of this book is to catalyze a conversation between Cognitive Scientists and Educators. Toward that end, we need a shared vocabulary. This book will introduce you to 48 commonly used terms from Cognitive Science.

From grade school to graduate school, from the poorest public institutions to the most affluent private ones, our educational system is failing students. In his provocative new book, cognitive scientist and bestselling author Roger Schank argues that class size, lack of parental involvement, and other commonly-cited factors have nothing to do with why students are not learning. The culprit is a system of subject-based instruction and the solution is cognitive-based learning. This groundbreaking book defines what it would mean to teach thinking. The time is now for schools to start teaching minds!

This volume is a result of mathematicians, cognitive scientists, mathematics educators, and classroom teachers combining their efforts to help address issues of importance to classroom instruction in mathematics. In so doing, the contributors provide a general introduction to fundamental ideas in cognitive science, plus an overview of cognitive theory and its direct implications for mathematics education. A practical, no-nonsense attempt to bring recent research within reach for practicing teachers, this book also raises many issues for cognitive researchers to consider.

The Cognitive Classroom describes how cutting-edge and classic research findings from the fields of brain science and cognitive psychology may be applied to classroom teaching. Using the perspective and expertise of an educational researcher originally trained as a neuroscientist, research findings and theories are translated into practical strategies. The jargon so often found in research journals and technical reports is discarded here, as studies are presented in an engaging manner that any educated individual can easily follow. Specifically, the book describes how research on perception, attention, learning, memory, language, reasoning, and problem solving may be used to achieve the type of “deep” learning sought after by teachers. What's more, this book discusses recent findings showing how the brains and cognitive processes of today’s students have been impacted by technology and proposes actions that educators can take to optimize teaching in a digital world.

METHODS OF TEACHING: APPLYING COGNITIVE SCIENCE TO PROMOTE STUDENT LEARNING helps prospective teachers learn how to apply recent findings by cognitive scientists to their classroom practices in order to promote true conceptual change among their students. The book focuses squarely on ways to bring about deep rather than surface learning to all students.The authors use and model many of the teaching strategies they present, focusing on major "core" concepts and utilizing a rich array of pedagogical features, to help prospective teachers build a deep understanding of how people learn and what strategies they can use as teachers to help their students achieve long-lasting comprehension.Throughout the text, the authors emphasize the need to change instruction in light of new findings from cognitive science. Planning for instruction, behavior management, and technology are integrated into each chapter.

The Science of Reading: A Handbook brings together state-of-the-art reviews of reading research from leading names in the field, to create a highly authoritative, multidisciplinary overview of contemporary knowledge about reading and related skills. Provides comprehensive coverage of the subject, including theoretical approaches, reading processes, stage models of reading, cross-linguistic studies of reading, reading difficulties, the biology of reading, and reading instruction Divided into seven sections:Word Recognition Processes in Reading; Learning to Read and Spell; Reading Comprehension; Reading in Different Languages; Disorders of Reading and Spelling; Biological Bases of Reading; Teaching Reading Edited by well-respected senior figures in the field