This article differentiates between sustained productive learning and short term enthusiasm in learning. (BB)

Describes discovery learning, a teaching method that encourages students to use inductive reasoning. Students explore and experiment using the skill or idea being taught; they determine rules, make generalizations, and discover concepts. The teacher acts as coach, advisor, and reinforcer. A student page offers a discovery learning game on capital…

Elementary teacher describes a two-week project which involved using cooperative learning to teach sixth graders about averages. Cooperative groups worked to find the daily average of a variety of items. Students had real-world examples of averaging to replace standard textbook drill and practice. (SM)

This paper answers several frequently asked questions about constructivism, including how to define it, how to plan the curriculum, how to assess student understanding, what to do with the information, where to begin, how students work in a constructivist classroom, and why constructivism is important. (SM)

Students need to be able to classify mapping devices, map purposes, and code forms so that skills learned on one map setting can be readily transferred to any map using the same techniques. (MB)

Suggestions are made for overcoming these common learning problems: (1) can't stick to a task; (2) trouble organizing time and space when starting or finishing a task; (3) trouble dealing with verbal information; (4) visual and visual-motor difficulties; (5) trouble understanding spoken language; and (6) trouble memorizing. (JD)

By insisting that a student master a skill before progressing to a more complex task, a teacher can help that student build a firm foundation for further learning experiences. (JD)

Describes one elementary teacher's strategies to help students learn spelling using cooperative learning groups. Mixed-ability groups of four children are established, and students take turns being the caller, recorder, reader, and checker. Students retain more because of the amount of repetition. A weekly classroom spelling schedule is presented.…

Presents classroom learning activities to help elementary teachers and students learn about and experiment with the sense of taste. One involves tasting an apple while smelling an onion; another involves locating areas of the tongue that respond to salt, sweet, bitter, and sour. (SM)

Presents creative ways for teachers to interest students in learning history by encouraging a feel for the context and interrelationships of events. Names, dates, and events are interspersed with opportunities for students to experience history through their own lives (e.g. oral histories, personal scrapbooks, family photographs, and household…

Presents ideas to help elementary school educators teach their students about magnetic force fields by observing how iron filings line up around magnets. The article lists materials needed and offers a student page with suggested student activities. (SM)

Presents low-cost learning activities to help teach elementary students about the earth's magnetic field. One project has students make a model of the earth's magnetic field. Another has them experiment with magnetism. (SM)

Presents a handbook of activities to sharpen elementary students' observational and critical thinking skills as they monitor national, local, and classroom elections. Activities teach the steps of sound decision making. Students learn to set up complete classroom or schoolwide elections. A poster describes life in the White House. (SM)

Describes Math Safari, a mathematical, scientific, geographic, informational adventure for fourth grade students. It integrates all curriculum areas and other skills by using information children must find in books to pose math problems about animals. It encourages cooperative learning, critical reading, analysis, and use of research skills. (SM)

Presents suggestions to help elementary teachers organize learning centers and activities around the themes of Peter Rabbit (Grade 1), weather (Grade 3), and bees (Grade 5). Suggestions are given for activities in centers for listening/reading, language arts, computers, math, science, cooperative learning, research, and writing. (SM)