Class Meetings with a teacher and group of young children (ages 3-5) provide a forum for creative group problem solving, both establishing a community of learners and developing oral language skills. The construction of a child's oral language and problem-solving skills is far reaching and is an underlying theme in many areas of social and emotional growth including moral development, character development, conflict resolution, identification of values, self esteem, and academic improvement. The theoretical framework for this study is based on various scholarly sources including those concerned with early childhood group learning, oral language, and problem solving.During this 12 week action research study, both teacher-talk and children's problem solving strategies were addressed to answer the following research questions: What roles do teachers play in Class Meetings? What types of teacher talk are used to influence student thinking and talk within Class Meetings? What problems are identified in a Class Meeting with young children? What problem-solving strategies do young children develop within Class Meetings? The research design and methodology include videotaping, audio taping Class Meetings and transcribing these interactions with preschool children in an early childhood classroom setting.Results indicate that during this study, attendance at the Class Meetings increased, and that young children, when given the opportunity to self-select, chose to attend the Class Meetings over other available activities. Also, this study suggests that the Class Meeting model and effective teacher-talk support student oral language, the use of positive communication, problem identification, and the development of problem solving strategies. Implications for early childhood educators, teacher educators, policymakers and researchers are discussed.

History teaching has its own peculiarities as every teaching subject. At the first sight history teaching is not very different from other subject teaching, but it is not so. For example, while teaching geography, there is a possibility to observe tides, mountains, active volcanes, the change of climate, effect on production etc. While teaching biology, the visual aids can be used observing the researched phenomena, they can also be applied in acknowledgment of this area phenomena. However, it is impossible to see the past directly learning history. There are no more wars and battles, peace, country borders exchange, solemn wows, which used to be given, revolutions and rebellions. It is only possible to imagine them. That means, that the demand of visual thinking, which could only be realized by visual arts, appears in this case, and in the case of history taught at school history coursebooks, illustrations are needed. The aim of the work is to show that illustrations of history help to develop visual thinking. The object of research is the development of visual thinking during history lessons. The objectives of the work are to analyze philosophical, pedagogical, phychological literature, studies of art, related to the analysed topic, to show the conception of visual thinking, to present the survey of history coursebooks polygraphic development and the survey of illustrations art change, to research educational premises in the development of visual thinking. In this work the... [to full text]

1. Remiantis moksline literatūra darbe buvo išnagrinėti įvairių mokslininkų požiūriai apie šachmatų žaidimo įtaką vaikų kūrybinio mąstymo raidai, kurios tapo pagrindu iškelti šio darbo hipotezes. 2. Tyrime nustatyta, kad:  Per du metus jaunųjų šachmatininkų neverbalinio kūrybinio mąstymo: mąstymo gausumo (t = 3,652, p= 0,001) ir mąstymo originalumo (t =3,617 ; p =0,001) rodikliai (The Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, TTCT) (1974) statistiškai reikšmingai padidėjo.  Kūrybinio mąstymo lankstumo (t = 1,261; p = 0,213) ir mąstymo detalumo (t = -2,076 ; p =0,053) rodikliai (The Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, TTCT) (1974) išliko beveik tokie patys: skirtumai tarp 2005 metų ir 2007 metų re-testo rezultatų yra statistiškai nereikšmingi.  Skirtumas tarp 2005 metų ir 2007 metų re-testo bendrų neverbalinio kūrybinio mąstymo tyrimo rezultatų yra statistiškai nereikšmingas (t = 0,881 ; p = 0,382). Pirmoji ir antroji hipotezės apie jaunųjų šachmatininkų neverbalinio kūrybinio mąstymo vystymosi ypatumus pasitvirtino dalinai. 3. Siekiant ištirti jaunųjų šachmatininkų neverbalinio intelekto ir neverbalinio kūrybinio mąstymo sąsajų ypatumus rastas silpnas statistiškai nereikšmingas ryšys (r = 0,269 ; p = 0,052). Analizuojant atskirus kūrybinio mąstymo komponentus:  nustatytas teigiamas statistiškai reikšmingas ryšys tarp jaunųjų šachmatininkų neverbalinio intelekto ir neverbalinio kūrybinio mąstymo detalumo (r = 0,307 ; p = 0,025);  kiti neverbalinio kūrybinio mąstymo... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Creativity is multidimensional and still not completely understood by psychologists. Creative thinking is an important ability formed by some factors: flexibility, originality, fluency, elaboration. Through chess, pupils learn to invent creative solutions to problems. Chess can strengthen problem-solving skills, foster critical, creative, and original thinking, demonstrate the importance of flexible planning, concentration, and the consequences of decisions. The aim of the investigation was to analyze young chess player’s creative thinking in different age, their achievement. Torrance test of creative thinking (TTCT, 1974) was used as the main evaluation tool. The scoring was as follows:  Fluency by the number of interpretable, meaningful, and relevant responses to the stimulus,  Flexibility by the variety of categories of relevant responses,  Originality by responses which are unexpected, unusual, unique or statistically rare,  Elaboration by the addition of pertinent details. Fifty six children of chess school in Vilnius were investigated using this method. The main result showed that young chess player‘s creative thinking (Torrance test (TTCT, 1974)) is not significantly higher than 2 years ago. Correlation have been found between the TTCT and Raven in the construct of elaboration (r = 0,307; p = 0,025).

A central task of contemporary analytic philosophy is to develop an understanding of how our minds are connected to the external (or mind-independent) world. Arising from this task is the need to explain how thoughts represent things in the world. Giving such an explanation is the central endeavor of this dissertation—the aim being to contribute to our understanding of what it is for a subject to be thinking of a particular object. The structure of the dissertation is set, in part, by responding to the commonly held view that a satisfactory explanation of what it is to think of a particular object can be drawn out of, or extended from, an explanation of what it is to be referring to that particular object. Typically, in investigating these matters, it is accepted that there is an explanatory priority of language over thought. This is the Priority Thesis. Some take the Priority Thesis to reflect an appropriate methodological strategy. In this form, it implies the methodological point that the best way to describe thoughts is by describing them as they are expressed in language. Most, however, seem to take the Priority Thesis to be symptomatic of a substantive, metaphysical truth. This, to put it one way, is that the content of a thought is paralleled by the content of the associated linguistic expression. I call this the Assumption of Parallelism. This characterizes what we call Linguistic Turn philosophy (i.e., analytic philosophy). The body of the dissertation arises out of questioning the extent of the application ofthe Priority Thesis in developing theories of reference and thought. I call the move of the partial overturning ofthe Priority Thesis the Linguistic U-Turn. The overall conclusion is that we cannot explain what it is to think of a particular object by extending explanations of what it is to be referring to that particular object. In particular, I reject what I call the Causal Theory of Thought—the view that the representational properties of a thought are explained by the referential properties of the appropriate singular term. My aim, then, is to show that a popular conviction concerning the representational properties of thoughts about things in the world is not warranted.

Fred Dretske (1981) claimed that the essence of the kind of cognitive activity that gives rise to Intentional mental states is a process by which the analogue information coming from a source-object is transformed into digital form. It is this analogue-to-digital conversion of data that enables us to form concepts of things. But this achievement comes with a cost, since the conversion must involve a loss of information. The price we pay for the lost information is a proportional diminishment in our ability to discriminate the source-object from others that may be similar to it. I argue that this fact underlies an important distinction between what a mental state may be about and to what the state may be directed, Aboutness and directedness are two of four Intentional dimensions on which this project concentrates. The other two are aspectual shape and misrepresentation. The distinction between aboutness and directedness is a part of a proposed approach to Intentionality based on the script theory of Roger Schank and Robert Abelson (1977). Scripts are schemata—organized knowledge structures that guide our understanding of the world around us. Schank and Abelson's basic ideas are extended to yield four different script-types: episodic (related to situations and events), instrumental (related to procedural knowledge), personal (representing an agent's goals and plans), and definitional (involved in object-recognition). The relationship between scripts and the Intentionality of thought is the main focus of this dissertation. An important secondary concern is the viability of externalism and internalism. It is argued that neither of these attitudes is independently adequate to provide a full account of Intentional content. Rather, the proper approach is to confine externalistic influences to aboutness and then characterize directedness in a manner that captures the world-according-to-the-agent. This strategy is implemented in the following way: aboutness is construed causally-evolutionarily; directedness is constructed with the help of the notion of an equivalence class; aspectual shape is shown to be a function of the kind of information a script provides; and an account of misrepresentation is given by comparing the different extensions generated from aboutness and directedness respectively.

This dissertation aims to use a system thinking approach to describe and evaluate the Lead-Acid Battery Recycling Program in British Columbia, compare it with other provincial regulated recycling programs and identify strategies on how it can be improved. The research is presented in the manuscript based format, comprised of four interrelated chapters. Following the introduction, chapter 2 describes a multiple regression analysis to assess how various factors identified by informed stakeholders have contributed to recycling rate in 14 transportation zones from 1995 to 2005. This study demonstrates that the existing recycling scheme ineffectively promotes recycling as it has achieved an average of 75% over the past 13 years with large fluctuations among transportation zones. The regression also shows that recycling rate of transportation zones are not highly influenced by LME lead prices and Transportation Incentive (which can be explained by the strong market power of the recycling plants responsible for setting up the price of scrap lead to which the collectors respond). Chapter 3 identifies key components that influence the performance of varied recycling systems based on a comparative analysis of provincial recycling systems informed by expert interviews. In chapter 4, comprehensive evaluation criteria for the lead-acid battery recycling program is developed based on objectives and performance measures elicited through an extensive stakeholder consultation process with various individuals and organizations. Fundamental objectives identified by stakeholders include: reduce environmental impacts, reduce occupational health impacts, reduce net costs, increase equity in resource consumption patterns and increase systematic learning. In chapter 5, we use multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA) to design and assess effective recycling strategies to meet societal objectives previously identified in the chapter 4. Recycling strategies were compiled using the results of chapter 3. The results reveals that the optimal policy for the lead-acid battery recycling system combines a return to retailer program financed through an advanced disposal fee included in the battery price in combination with increased plant or recycling capacity domestically. This research also provides relevant contributions to the refining and application of value-focused thinking and decision analysis methodologies.

This study supported Schon's notions of reflective practice as being applicable to teachers involved in teaching physical activities in the context of unforgiving learning environments and specifically to teachers in the sport diving community. According to Schon, one's ability to recognize patterns and act effectively and efficiently in situations of uniqueness and uncertainty depends upon one's capacity to frame problems. In doing so, one draws upon a repertoire of past experience arid ways of capturing that experience which enables the development of the ability to reframe problems in light of information gathered from the direct experience. Reframing occurs through the processes of reflection-in-action and reflection-onaction and is a response to an internal dialogue related to the action setting, in which something has not happened as expected, thus producing a curious or intrigued response. A number of issues specific to teacher reflection in unforgiving learning environments emanated from the analysis of one sport diving teacher engaged in teaching an entry-level sport diving course which involved three different teaching environments (the classroom setting, the confined water [pool] and open water [ocean] environments). Three research questions guided the analysis. In answer to the first research question: What factors do sport diving practitioners reflect upon in each of the three environments? six reflective themes were identified in this case study with five being common across the three teaching environments and the remainder being specific to the classroom environment. The common themes were: a trusting relationship, the necessity of teacher control, to see the 'unforgivingness' of the environment, learning from one's practice, challenges to one's practice and understanding one's practice. In answer to the second research question: What influences the reflective process? the analysis revealed thirteen underlying or influencing factors or dispositions across the three teaching environments with eight of them being common to either two, or all three, of the environments. In answer to the third research question: What is the nature of sport diving practitioners' reflective practice? five categories have been used to address the analysis: 1) across environment related, 2) classroom and confined water (pool) related, 3) confined water (pool) and open water (ocean) related 4) classroom and open water (ocean) related and 5) specific to one environment. The reflection process documented in this study suggested that Schon's notion of reflective practice is very applicable to the professional development of sport diving as his conception of reflection applies to the three areas of teaching which exist in unforgiving learning environments: the problem solving disposition of teacher reflection, the learning from one's practice, and the probing of internal dialogue.

This thesis examines weight-based stigma in schools, and examines body size as an issue of difference, subject to discrimination, from within a critical democratic framework. I raise a paradox when it comes to dealing with the issue of obesity; we don’t want to say that weight is within individual control, however, we don’t want to say obesity is outside individual control and nothing can be done to affect it. Neoliberal conceptions of obesity in Western countries are highly individualistic, and blame obese individuals for failing to adhere to social norms. This leads to deficit thinking about obese individuals, wherein a group of students are seen as inherently deficient. Turning to Freire’s conception of ethics, which calls for respect for all students, it becomes clear that conceiving of a group of students as inherently deficient is unethical. This then renders the neoliberal conception of obesity unethical. I then offer pedagogically and ethically sound alternatives to current practices.

This thesis examines weight-based stigma in schools, and examines body size as an issue of difference, subject to discrimination, from within a critical democratic framework. I raise a paradox when it comes to dealing with the issue of obesity; we don’t want to say that weight is within individual control, however, we don’t want to say obesity is outside individual control and nothing can be done to affect it. Neoliberal conceptions of obesity in Western countries are highly individualistic, and blame obese individuals for failing to adhere to social norms. This leads to deficit thinking about obese individuals, wherein a group of students are seen as inherently deficient. Turning to Freire’s conception of ethics, which calls for respect for all students, it becomes clear that conceiving of a group of students as inherently deficient is unethical. This then renders the neoliberal conception of obesity unethical. I then offer pedagogically and ethically sound alternatives to current practices.

In this master thesis the features of teenager’s creativity are traversed. The work consist of the following structure: introduction, two main sections (which are divided into more detailed subsections), conclusion, reference, bibliography and appendixes. In the first section the problem of teenagers creativity is outlined theoretically. The definition of creativity, teenagers creativity, creative thinking, creative imagination and the main factors of teenagers creativity are described. In the second section the research on teenagers note: who at present learn at 9-12 forms of a Secondary School) creativity is analysed. K.K. Urban’s and H.G. Jellen’s TCT-DP methods of creative thinking (A. Matchak’s, Javorovska’s, and Stanchak’s polish version, 1998) and V.Petrulis tasks from questionnaire on person’s creativity were applied in the research. In the result girls indexes (6,297) were higher than boys indexes (5,297) according the TCT-DP method of creative thinking. This leads to the conclusion that in general 9-12 form girls are more creative in comparing with boys. And after the comparison made on differences in average components of creativity the assumption of girls superiority can be also made. According the results of the research there are no any essential difference in 9-10 forms and 11-12 forms creative thinking. It was completely proved by the applied K.K. Urban’s and H.G. Jellen’s TCT-DP method of creative thinking and V. Petrulis questionnaire tasks. According the... [to full text]