Education Commons^™

Adapt Faculty And Staff List 1975-1997

ADAPT Program: Faculty Biographies and Links

Faculty/staff names, departments, and dates of participation in the ADAPT Program at University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Moore Leads Adapt Workshop In Chile

ADAPT Program: Faculty Biographies and Links

Christopher J. Moore (M.S. 1992) presented a workshop on “College Teaching and the Development of Reasoning” to more than 30 faculty at the Universidad de Tarapacá in Arica, Chile during 14–15 November 2002. Moore’s invitation stemmed from the interest of the faculty at the University of Tarapacá to initiate a multidisciplinary program for college students patterned after the successful ADAPT (Accent for Developing Advanced Processes of Thought) program developed and taught at the University of Nebraska under the leadership of Professor Robert Fuller from 1975–1997. Moore worked with Fuller in the ADAPT program and also helped develop materials for undergraduate …

Mel Thornton's Legacy Is Teaching Corps, Mark Hattan

ADAPT Program: Faculty Biographies and Links

Math Professor to Retire After 30 Years

After more than 30 years at the University of Nebraska, Mel Thornton is retiring from the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. The Spring 2000 semester will be his last. Most of the state's elementary and secondary math teachers know Thornton. His decades-long tenure at Nebraska left its mark on math education. He taught graduate students, prepared teachers, and helped students meet the math requirements of their liberal arts education. "I'll miss the interaction with the students," Thornton said. "I'll miss the excitement of seeing them discover some things."

Scientific Reasoning And Achievement In A High School English Course, Elmer A. Kral

ADAPT Program: Faculty Biographies and Links

The hypothetical-deductive pattern of reasoning, an advanced reasoning model common to science, can be effectively transferred to the study of English and improve both English usage and reasoning skills.

Though educators in the United States say that they already are teaching thinking and that the physical sciences and mathematics offer opportunities for learning higher-order reasoning skills, most observers agree that the goal of teaching students how to think has not been fulfilled. The reasons are varied. Perhaps the most serious deficiency is that teachers have never had a clear notion of just what advanced reasoning is--and just what to do …

Developing Formal Reasoning Through The Study Of English, Anton E. Lawson, Elmer A. Kral

ADAPT Program: Faculty Biographies and Links

Although hardly immune to criticism, Piaget's concept of sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete, and formal operational stages of thought has considerable face validity. In view of the accumulated Piagetian observations that critical reasoning skills develop in a generally sequential order, the finding that a substantial proportion of adolescents and adults demonstrate very little competency with formal reasoning skills poses a serious educational concern. The purpose of this article is to present ten practical teaching procedures to encourage students to develop formal reasoning skills. A 12th-grade English course will be used as an example.