Abstract/Notes: A study examined the effects of multi-age/grade instruction, compared to the traditional single-grade approach, on the reading achievement of fourth graders. Subjects, 22 fourth-graders in a single-grade class, were divided into instructional groups based on chronological age while the instructional grouping for 22 students in a combined fourth and fifth grade class at a neighboring school cut across age and grade levels. The Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills was used to measure the growth in "total reading" over a 1-year period. Results indicated no statistically significant difference between means of the two groups, although a positive mean score in favor of the multi-age instructional design was noted. (A 50-item bibliography, and the themes of study and sample lesson plans for both groups are attached.) (RS)

Language: English

Published: Danbury, Connecticut, 1989

Abstract/Notes: Report by the director of the Werkplaats Kindergemeinsschap (children's community) in Bilthoven (The Netherlands)

Language: English, Italian

Published: Roma, Italy: Ente Opera Montessori, 1950

Language: Italian

Published: Roma, Italy: Vita dell'infanzia, 1960

Language: English

Abstract/Notes: Defines Cosmic Education using Mario Montessori's concrete illustration of the interdisciplinary and synthetic nature of the program. Suggests that the "The Great River," a sixth "Great Lesson," can be a framework for the history of human cooperation, and that this story lays the groundwork for teaching an understanding of social cooperation and solidarity in Montessori schools. (KDFB)

Language: English

ISSN: 1522-9734

Abstract/Notes: This paper is the synthesis of Elizabeth Henke's four years of work from 2009-2013: three years at the high school and one year at the University for Peace. She summarizes, "A Montessori high school education should reveal to the adolescent a pathway to peace that is built on positive human relations and should provide opportunities for contributions to the community that result in experiences of valorization. The organizing principles of the universe and society are revealed in the core of each discipline, and a moral framework emerges before the adolescent when disciplines are explored with the help of experts." This is the first Montessori document that attempts to directly derive moral essentials from teacher interviews about formal high school disciplines that develop peaceful communication and action and bring an understanding of peace theory to students at the Montessori High School at University Circle, in Cleveland, OH.

Language: English

ISSN: 1522-9734

Language: English

Published: [S.I.]: s.n.], 1983

Language: Dutch

Published: Amsterdam, The Netherlands: [s.n.], 1966

Language: Dutch

Published: Badhoevedorp, The Netherlands: Nederlandse Montessori Vereniging, 1998

ISBN: 90-73689-10-4

Abstract/Notes: This study examines the school’s physical environment as a place of learning, and takes its starting point in the phenomenology movement, inspired both by Merleau-Ponty’s thesis of man’s physical relation to the world and by the existential analysis represented by Heidegger which implies a mutual relationship between man and the world. Such a view rejects a standpoint which describes man as being divided between a material body and a thinking soul. Instead, there emerges an embodied self which engages in meaningful interaction with its surroundings. The choice of this standpoint has implications for the design of the school’s physical environment. Montessori pedagogy is one of the activity-based pedagogies which have designed the physical environment in line with this theory. The purpose of the study is to understand, but further to visualise, the way in which the conditions for learning for children and adolescents are created in schools, from pre-school to lower secondary level, which follow the Montessori pedagogy. The material for the empirical study has been gathered from Europe and the US and from differing social contexts. The reason for this is to discover what distinguishes the prepared environment. The study also discusses the way in which the argument for a form of schooling which is based on activity, from the early 20th century to the present day, has been addressed through the architectural design of schools. The thesis shows that the rich array of didactic material in the schools observed offers pupils the opportunity to perform activities which create meaning. The organisation of the environment provides the pupils with the necessary conditions to concentrate fully on their work and to complete their tasks without interruption. I see the didactic continuity which prevails from pre-school to the lower secondary school in the Montessori schools studied as a prerequisite if the pedagogical activity is to offer meaning and create the conditions for learning in the way demonstrated by the empirical studies.

Language: Swedish

Published: Stockholm, Sweden, 2012