Fifth graders responded to a video of a picturebook,"The Red Tree" by Shaun Tan. They had not experienced explicit instruction in visual literacy and their responses served as a foundation for basic understanding of their analysis. We learned that they focused on four major areas: emotional aspects; visual qualities, summaries of the…

In this article Raymond Benton, Jr. describes how he implemented a variation on Eliot Aronson's (Aronson et al. 1978) "jigsaw classroom" activity. While there are similarities between Aronson's jigsaw classroom and what is described here, there are differences as well. In Aronson's system, the classroom was divided into subgroups. Each…

Students enter physical education teacher education (PETE) programs with preconceived notions about what it means to be a physical educator, developed in response to their own experiences in K-12 physical education. These preconceived notions may be flawed or incomplete and, in order to be effective, PETE programs must help preservice teachers…

Learning communities can strengthen early undergraduates' learning, but planning them can be daunting for instructors. Learning communities usually rely on integrative assignments that encourage interdisciplinary analysis. This article reports on our experiences using microloans as an interdisciplinary assignment in a learning community that…

As an educator, the author learned that her job was not simply to teach the fundamental concepts of literature and writing, but also to teach students the fundamentals of conversation and collaboration. In this article, the author shares her experience in using traditional, teacher-centered methods to inspire spirited conversations among students…

Creative exercises (CEs) are a form of assessment in which students are given a prompt and asked to write down as many distinct, correct, and relevant facts about the prompt as they can. Students receive credit for each fact that they include that is related to the prompt and distinct from the other facts they list. With CEs, students have an…

Global social justice is often portrayed as a project of either developing appropriate dispositions or of amending the rules that govern global interaction. Despite policy pronouncements by many university vice chancellors on the significance of higher education in contributing to learning about global social justice, there is very little…

The author advocates the use of films to supplement textbook treatments of bank runs and panics in money and banking or general banking classes. Modern students, particularly those in developed countries, tend to be unfamiliar with potential fragilities of financial systems such as a lack of deposit insurance or other safety net mechanisms. Films…

Using a framework grounded in critical literacy, the author describes her 1st-grade students' responses to works of literature that portray the impact of war. When given opportunities to read works of literature that address social justice issues, such as the consequences of war, her primary-age students' written, drawn, and spoken responses were…

Children with disabilities live in every country of the world. Training personnel to provide education and rehabilitative services to these children, no matter where they live, is a continuing challenge for the profession. This paper describes a human development course in a program designed for an international religious organization based in…

The teaching of highly valued scientific writing skills in the first year of university is challenging. This report describes the design, implementation, and evaluation of a novel written assignment, "The Personal Response" and accompanying Peer Review, in the course, Human Biology (BIOL1015) at The University of Queensland. These assignments were…

In this Voices Inside Schools essay, a veteran teacher shares her reflections on a classroom unit entitled "How Language Reveals Character." The goal of the unit is to help adolescents read and write critically through an exploration of literary characters' language. Beginning by drawing on adolescents' fascination with one another,…

Following the Oklahoma City bombing, fifth graders at a nearby elementary school coped with ensuing uncertainty, pain, and loss. They wrote appreciative letters to fire and rescue workers; shared personal stories with classmates; compiled an anthology of poems, prayers, and stories; attended an assembly to honor parents participating in rescue…

Rural school students need ample opportunities to engage in creative writing, particularly the writing of poetry. A student teacher and a cooperating teacher in a rural fifth-grade classroom (with 12 students) guided the students in the writing of limericks by starting out with couplets, then triplets, and then limericks. The teacher had clearly…

Presents a dialog among three English teachers concerning teaching performance poetry to ninth graders. (RS)