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In this forum it seems that ‘conventional? ‘traditional?or ‘orthodox?might be seen as pejorative terms when applied to Piagetian research, but here goes: Michael Shayer and his team at King’s College London first did some work to validate Piaget’s model of concrete and formal operational thinking. They then A: conducted a remarkably large national survey (UK) to describe the levels of operational thinking evident in the problem solving of primary and (esp.) secondary school children; B: Using the same Piagetian model, they assessed the levels of cognitive demand required by the national science curriculum; and C: showed that A was not sufficient for understanding B Towards a science of science teaching, Shayer & Adey They next developed the Cognitive Acceleration through Science Education intervention, where CASE (Thinking Science) lessons were based explicitly on the Piagetian model expounded in LELA/GLT, and conducted trials. Then in a major experimental intervention study involving students in a dozen schools with control classes CASE Classes showed advanced cognitive development over controls and improved GCSE (matriculation) exam results: Really Raising Standards: Cognitive intervention and academic achievement By Philip Adey, Dr Michael Shayer, MICHAEL Shayer CASE interventions has been independently assessed (Australia, US) as effective. A self supporting group of science teachers in Australia are setting up an evaluation of the “CASE on the Coast?interventions over the next three years. In essence, understand Piagetian theory, develop teaching strategies based directly on that theory, change children’s life chances. Move along, please. Nothing to see here. Move along.