According to futurist/educational technology expert Chris Dede, new technologies will revolutionize education only when used to support new models of teaching and learning. Grafting technological solutions onto antiquated structures and learning approaches is misguided. Sidebars explain schools' technology access problems and review Clifford…

Presents 12 principles for "brain-based" learning that can serve as guidelines for defining and selecting instructional programs and methodologies. Discussion includes implications for education, suggestions for teaching information literacy skills, individual differences in the learning process, and the use of multimedia technologies. (AEF)

Relates the experiences of a teacher who consciously reconceived his teaching as a part of a process--to think of instructional goals as provisional rather than set. Outlines his six goals dealing with teaching and experiencing literature. Discusses teaching techniques such as test rendering, response history, and portfolios. (PRA)

Presents a group-guided invented-spelling instructional strategy called "Making Words" which teachers can use with beginning readers to develop their ability to spell words and to apply this knowledge when decoding during reading. Discusses how to plan and teach the strategy. Describes two sample lessons, and explores why the strategy works. (PRA)

Presents practical ideas for classroom use in literacy education, including a schoolwide reading incentive program; a center to publish students' work; a way to use the calendar to improve reading; and a method for using children's oral language patterns (such as jump rope rhymes) to teach reading skills and strategies. (PRA)

Considers the question of whether instructional methods are replaceable or interchangeable. Topics discussed include the influence of external events on learning and cognitive processes, media variables, linking instructional design to research on learning from instruction, construct validity, and an example of adequate instructional design and…

Describes a 10-stage process approach to teaching technical students "definition." Includes an assignment that encourages the use of the defining process. Discusses advantages of the approach. (PRA)

Focuses on the importance of more closely understanding the ways in which faculty foster and perpetuate classroom authority, and ways in which learners become entangled in unconscious transference. Uses a psychoanalytic model to discuss the implications of traditional classroom power relationships between teachers and students. Suggests strong…

A focus on people--whether community members, students, historical figures, or fictional characters--and their motivations brings excitement to learning. A community's experts on everything from jazz music and Chinese tapestries to building construction can help students move inside history and other subjects. (MLH)

Examines how theories of antioppressive education can help educators teach, supervise student teachers, and conduct research in ways that work against repetitions of privileged knowledge and practices. Shows how students may seek knowledge confirming what they already know and challenges educators to disrupt unconscious discourses. (Contains 39…

Presents an instructional model, using Kleist's story "Das Erdbeben in Chili" and Christa Wolf's novel Kei Ort. Nirgends" as a basis. The model clearly distinguishes itself from quantitative models and mediates solid literary knowledge through an inductive approach. Learning takes place in a multidimensional space that makes possible multiple…

Describes the author's research on learning and brain activity, which involved more than 5,000 students and faculty members. Explores six stages of learning: (1) preparing to learn; (2) starting to learn; (3) consolidation; (4) branching out; (5) gaining fluency; and (6) continued improving. States that merging educational research with…

Describes the Feldenkrais Method of somatic education, noting parallels with a dynamic systems theory (DST) approach to motor behavior. Feldenkrais uses movement and perception to foster individualized improvement in function. DST explains that a human-environment system continually adapts to changing conditions and assembles behaviors…

Examines the views of a representative sample of experts in physics, physics education, and history and philosophy of science (HPS) on the incorporation of HPS-based materials in physics instruction. Reports on three areas: (1) the rationale to include HPS; (2) the most appropriate ways of doing so; and (3) anticipated difficulties with such a new…

Introduces a web site designed to teach descriptive chemistry through testing. (YDS)