The importance of reducing the gender gap in engineering programs by recruiting and retaining female students is well recognized. Although women hold roughly half of all jobs in the United States, only 24% of STEM jobs are occupied by women. The problem is even more pronounced for engineering, where women held about 12% of jobs as of 2013 (Corbett…

This article describes a cooperative project between eighth graders and first graders called "Going Green in the Neighborhood." The project entailed the first grade students sketching home designs on paper to make a model community, and the eighth grade students taking those drawings and making them into 3D computer models and then…

In this article, the author describes a project that deals with fire production as an aspect of technology. The project challenges students to be survivors in a five-day classroom activity. Students research various materials and methods to produce fire without the use of matches or other modern combustion devices, then must create "fire" to keep…

There is a battlefield where no quarter is given, no mercy shown, but not a single drop of blood is spilled. It is an arena that witnesses the bringing together of high-tech design and manufacture with the outpouring of brute force, under the remotely accessed command of some of today's brightest students. This is the world of battling robots, or…

This article presents a report of a pedagogic experience carried out in a Portuguese 6th-grade music education class during the 2008-2009 school year. A podcast was created (www.podomatic.com) and several activities were developed, in classroom context, taking advantage of the tool's potential for teaching and learning. Although the podcast was…

As educators, we have two missions. First, we must serve our students--they are both our customer and our product. Second, we aim to provide the market in general with graduates with relevant skills and knowledge for jobs that have not even been created yet. Given that most students graduating and moving into the workplace are not necessarily…

The annual Philbrick Science Showcase is a family event that celebrates students' science learning and highlights an ongoing partnership with the Boston Nature Center, a Massachusetts Audubon Society sanctuary within walking distance of the Philbrick school. At least twice a year, students visit the Nature Center to extend the science curriculum,…

This paper explores how and to what extent digital multimodal text production can play a role in project work. The focus is upon describing and understanding how teachers and learners view multimodal text production as part of a learning process. Group-based project work has been used extensively in Norwegian schools since the 1970s. One criticism…

Describes a Canadian kindergarten class project on birds undertaken as part of the teacher's efforts to support their critical thinking skills through lengthy projects. Presents class discussion excerpts, children's art pieces, and their work in bird-themed booklets to illustrate the construction of horizontal relevance, the nurturance of problem…

Describes a project about lines in the environment used with 2- and 3-year olds and based on the Reggio Emilia approach. Activities included making tracks with riding toys, drawing lines on papers, seeing cloud lines, and making lines with yarn and Cuisenaire rods. Shows how young children's observations and ongoing discoveries can uncover their…

Discusses "Students Discovering Cities" and related activities, explaining how the program evolved into a city planning project for fourth graders in West Jordan, Utah. Describes the final stage of the project in which students "built" their city inside the school gymnasium, complete with streets, lights, cardboard buildings,…

Describes the use of learning groups and computer-assisted instruction in introductory psychology classes at the University of Minnesota's General College, focusing on such applications as student psychology projects, study guide exercises, homework assessment, matching exercises, weekly quizzes, and practice materials. (DMM)

Describes a project, carried out jointly between a business communication class and a local chamber of commerce, that brings students into partnership with international merchants in the local community. (SR)

Describes a year-long project for upper elementary-middle school students that incorporates mathematics, language skills, problem solving, and economics in a classroom business. Outlines the 13-step process that the author's students followed in planning and running a classroom candy store. (SR)

With the help of the music, physical education, and art teachers, two third-grade classes wrote, scored, and produced an original operetta in a five-month interdisciplinary classroom project. The process is outlined and recommended by the authors for almost any grade level. (SJL)