EPDA [microform] : The Stanford Institute on Teaching for Reflective Thinking. Directors Report

The Institute was 1) to provide a group of 13 experienced teachers with techniques for teaching elementary school students to recognize and define problems, and 2) to work closely with these teachers, evaluating the effectiveness of their teaching techniques over a period of 1 year. A series of workshops used reading, films, discussion, and microteaching to develop the following concepts and skills: generation of warranted uncertainty, generation of alternative responses to a given problem, ability to ask questions, use of nonverbal techniques to promote warranted uncertainty in others, ability to distinguish between fact and inference, and strategies for teaching these concepts and skills to children. Evaluation of the institute by participants was very favorable. Several research projects being carried out in cooperation with the Uncertainty Studies Project involve the development of an observation instrument to measure the use of warranted uncertainty techniques by teachers, an analysis of the effectiveness of different teaching styles using warranted uncertainty techniques, and a determination of the correlates and predictors of elementary school students' ability to generate warranted uncertainty. Appendixes contain a list of participants, a schedule, copies of handouts that accompanied teaching demonstrations, an initial version of the observation instrument, and copies of tests of warranted uncertainty taken by elementary school students. (RT)