Contrasting traditional with present-day views of language learners, discussion focuses on aspects of the so-called communicative revolution. The present-day view includes negotiating the materials and seeing learners as knowers, testers, communicators, and evaluators. A suggested reading activity involves comparing two slightly differing texts.…

Describes Learning Choices, an orientation course developed by the author and offered at Northern Virginia Community College. States that the course was designed to give students control over what they learn, how they learn it, and how the learning outcome is measured. Suggests that new teaching strategies, such as distance learning, make…

The increasing emphasis on teacher-directed processing of adventure experiences may be devaluing both the learning experience and the promotion of self-reliance among students. The problem with "overprocessing" is that the teacher, not the student, decides what was learned and its relative value. In addition, this approach emphasizes…

Dynamic Learning Communities (DLCs) offer an alternative approach to the traditional Instructional Design (ID) format for learning. This paper outlines the concept of a dynamic learning community as an alternative to teacher-controlled or pre-designed instructional systems. DLCs are groups of people, who form a learning community generally…

The availability of user-friendly tools for designing learning environments resulted in an innovative shift of design focus. This shift has been noticed from a user-centred, although passive and reactive, design approach to a participatory, at responsibility and self-directedness directed, design approach. This latter innovative and promising…

This volume offers a comprehensive account of autonomy in language learning and the educational practices associated with the concept. The book is divided into 18 chapters: "The History of Autonomy in Language Learning"; "Autonomy beyond the Field of Language Education"; "Defining and Describing Autonomy"; Control as a Natural Attribute of…

Describes an undergraduate course at the Polytechnic of Wales called Information Systems for Management that was designed to give students responsibility for setting objectives, working at their own pace, and making self-assessments. Highlights include course objectives, course content, learning methods used, students' reactions, results obtained,…

Explored learning and instruction within a technology-rich, collaborative, participatory learning environment by tracking the emergence of shared understanding and products through student and teacher practices. Found that becoming knowledgeably skillful with respect to a particular practice or concept is a multigenerational process, evolving in…

This paper presentes a case study of an innovative class at the University of Edinburgh (Scotland) in an English for Academic purposes context in which spontaneous topics raised by the learners took the place of a pre-planned syllabus. The target students were late-matriculating research students and those with particularly weak spoken English.…

Efforts by community colleges to become more learning-centered reflect the reforms taking place in traditional higher education. In addition to making learning the highest priority, American education must continue to overhaul its outdated, traditional framework restricted by time, place, bureaucracy, and limited teacher roles. The ideal model of…

In today's progressive teaching environment where conceptual learning is key, portfolio assessment helps provide the motivation necessary to involve students in the learning process. The increased responsibility and empowerment of the student, the inclusion of a wider variety of assessment forms such as research papers, interviews, video…

Within many educational institutions across the world, the delivery of undergraduate and post-graduate courses is facilitated by online learning technologies. The development and transformation of traditional academic courses for online learning delivery provides a number of opportunities for both the academic institution and prospective students.…