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Prior to college-level mathematics coursework, students are not routinely provided with the opportunity to engage in the kind of sustained mathematical thinking necessary to solve complex, multistep problems, most likely because of the difficulties that school mathematics teachers face in communicating problem settings and contexts that are motivating and complex, yet ultimately resolvable by students. This paper outlines the theoretical base, development, and preliminary evaluation of anchored instructional environments (videodiscs) being used with middle-grade students to improve mathematical and scientific thinking processes. Discussed are the proactive motivation due to the video-based format including an embedded data design, the de-emphasis on reading due to a familiar narrative format, the discovery-based learning inherent in student-generated problem resolution, the implicitly manageable levels of complexity, and the possibilities for connections across the school curriculum. Initial preinstruction studies on 12 college students and on 12 high-achieving sixth graders induced extremely poor performance results by the sixth graders, which was not surprising both in view of the less than mediocre performance results of the college students, and in light of the realization that students cannot be expected to exhibit skills that have not yet been developed. (25 references) (JJK)

1Boy Crusoe

By Allan Eric

Also published as" A Yankee Crusoe" . A 15 year old hard working and studious farm boy finds the lure of adventure on the seas as a merchant seaman more than he can resist. This is his story. " I was born in a little town in the State of Maine, near the close of the Civil War. My boyhood life did not differ materially from that of the average farmer's son in the remote country districts of New England--except, perhaps, that I read more and thought more. Hard work on the rugged soil, two terms each year in the little yellow country schoolhouse, a day's fishing now and then filled the early years of my life full to over-flowing. " What he gets is enough excitement and adventure to overflow his wildest dreams. How he experiences disaster and uses his wits and knowledge to overcome every problem makes for a great read. - Summary by Phil Chenevert