Student-centered learning has an important place in education because it fosters student engagement and allows the traditional micromanaging teacher to transform into a guide. The current education model emphasizes teacher control and curriculum based on standardized testing, which stunts students' natural learning processes. This study…

The aims of the study were: (1) to identify components of student-centered inquiry teaching and to develop methodology to determine the extent to which these components are found in classrooms, and (2) to investigate the correlates of those components for which measures were developed. Instruments included a Biology Activity Report completed by a…

The authors evaluated the overall effectiveness of two contrasting approaches to teaching freshman composition. The first was a dialect-acceptance, student-centered approach; and the second was a language standardization, teacher-centered approach. The students were evaluated by pre- and post-testing in such cognitive areas as fluency,…

This field study report recounts an action research project undertaken by an elementary school teacher to reflect on her practice as a teacher. After a review of the literature on using reflection for personal and professional growth, the ethnographic methodology employed in the study is discussed. The teacher action-researcher took 117 pages of…

In order to facilitate the design of a secondary reading program which would be creative and relevant in its structure and content, this descriptive study randomly sampled students from a population of approximately 600 suburban Illinois high school freshmen. The needs of these students were investigated by means of several perceptual inventories,…

The concept of experiential education has gained increasing popularity among many types of institutions and organizations. Experiential education is an interactive learning process between student, instructor, subject, and environment where the student becomes actively involved with the subject at hand through discussion, activity, and creative…

Based on the example of the experimental We Weigh and Achieve to Gain Success (WAGS) program at Polk Community College which is designed to deal with unmotivated, undecided, and unprepared students, this study develops a model for implementing a student-centered remedial program at the community college level. The model outlines procedures to…

The author's primary goal was to investigate the relative viability of different kinds of open teaching. Project Learn, an open elementary classroom, met all the criteria set forth to be called such and was selected for the study. The independent variables were: teacher-guided instruction, small-group instruction, and individual-oriented…

Two methods of teaching drama as a literary form in an Introduction to Literature course were compared. Eighty-seven first-year students, 28 males and 59 females, were non-randomly assigned to four classes, two of which were taught in the traditional lecture-discussion manner while the remaining two utilized a method combining lecture-discussion…

This thesis discusses learning and teaching in geography at the college level and presents one model of learning which could serve as the basis of an introductory college grography course. The author interprets and alters two learning models previously presented to the geographic community: one model, developed by William D. Pattison, involves…

A first-grade teacher included her students in her planning of a unit of study. The teacher explained to the students how she planned a unit and invited the students to volunteer ideas for the topic. The topic chosen was space and aliens. The teacher and students discussed what they already knew about the topic, what they wanted to learn about it,…

A survey of the literature indicates that the adult reading student requires instruction based on perceptual, skill-learning principles, rather than on the analytical framework used for the instruction of elementary school reading students. This document proposes a systematic method of organizing a community college reading center to meet the…

This report describes a program for measuring student growth in the reading and writing process in order to improve achievement. The targeted population consisted of first- and second-grade students in three schools serving two suburban communities, located near a large midwestern city. School enrollment figures were 350, 399, and 669 students.…

This paper examines the use of oral dialogue journals as an integral part of foreign language instruction. It discusses the strengths and weaknesses of oral (audiotape) journals, and compares them to written journals. The paper then explores the use of oral dialogue journals in the teaching of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) to adult students…