Peer-mediation, an approach whereby students take the responsibility for learning from and teaching one another, is presented as an innovation in ESL classes. A rationale for this approach is presented based on actual classroom situations in which small-group, peer-mediated instruction is utilized. (Author/RM)

The objectives, organization, procedures, suggested resources, and evaluation of a secondary level, individualized program in Afro-American history are provided. (DE)

With proper inquiry into pertinent source material, a teacher can spark discussion and intelligent analysis of current issues on days when planned curriculum is not productive. Preplanning and questions for a discussion on Vietnam are offered as an example for teacher preparation. (DE)

A framework for curriculum design and a set of guidelines for curriculum development in gifted education are presented. The major dimensions guiding curriculum development for gifted students are: content, process, product, and learning environment. Curriculum content should be developed in such a way that it becomes more abstract, complex,…

What a human rights course should consist of, i.e., the objectives, course content, teaching methods, and evaluation techniques, are discussed. Human rights education must foster attitudes of tolerance and respect, provide knowledge about human rights, and develop students' awareness of how to translate human rights into social and political…

Reading courses at the college level strive to improve advanced reading proficiency as well as basic reading skills. The use of a problem-solving model is one way to provide students with an organized approach to comprehending, investigating, and resolving problem statements. The problem-solving model begins with a problem statement provided by…

In the fall of 1980, a course titled Developing Critical Thinking Skills was approved at the University of Minnesota-Duluth for offering as one of the options in the liberal education category called Communication, Language, and Symbolic Systems. This paper provides a description of the course (designed to provide experiences with methods and…

Two instructors at Bunker Hill Community College in Massachusetts have developed a unit of study designed to teach biology as a process, improve students' critical thinking and reasoning skills, and provide students with the opportunity to express these skills in writing. The instructional strategies employed in the unit are superimposed on a…

Compiled from the experiences of the staff of the Critical TV (Television) Viewing Skills Project for High School, this booklet presents ideas for designing and leading critical television viewing workshops as part of high school teacher inservice training sessions or training programs for other youth-serving adults. Sections discuss: (1) a…

The use of mini-campaign projects in an introductory course in advertising can (1) provide students with actual experience in dealing with real advertising problems; (2) bring classroom lectures and laboratory assignments into a "real-world" perspective; (3) give students a broader perspective of advertising; (4) bring students into contact with…

Freshman and sophomore composition students who are required to write in response to literature frequently find that they are not yet secure enough in their basic writing skills to discuss a literary work. In order to help these students, writing center tutors must be familiar with the assigned writing tasks and what instructors expect from an…

The need for colleges to develop critical thinking skills in mainstream courses is emerging as an issue of national significance. Students benefit from clearly articulated and pedagogically sound courses that directly and explicitly teach thinking skills, as well as from efforts to reinforce these abilities across the curriculum. At LaGuardia…

Based on a year's work with 16 second grade students, this two-part paper reports the successful use of the Marathon Writing (continuous writing for short periods on a regular basis) strategy in encouraging beginning writers to write independently. The first part of the paper explains the technique of marathon writing, and notes that even though…

Students are faced with many subjects related to death in their everyday lives--war, euthanasia, disease, teenage suicide. A unit on death that focuses on literary and artistic conceptions of death, as well as historical trends concerning beliefs about death and burial, can help students express their feelings about death coherently and…

A survey of instructors at Santa Monica College (SMC), in California, was conducted by the Center for the Study of Community Colleges to gather information on liberal arts instruction, course content, goals, and teaching patterns. With support from SMC administrators and liberal arts department heads, interviews were conducted with 23 instructors,…