Five brief essays are presented in response to an earlier article on leadership in college foreign-language departments. They address issues of curriculum redesign, pedagogical change, the nature of language teaching, the professional identity of language teachers, the role of professional organizations, and the traditional departmental model. A…

Describes creative methods of teaching elementary level science: eighth-grade hands-on experiments are made with rare rocks and gems via a "Mining by Mail" program; third-grade students use the "I Wonder" approach to examine questions of interest; process skills are adapted for different age levels. A staff development folder…

Focuses on the history of the whole language approach, which arose out of the ancient notion of teaching as an art rather than a science. The approach is unable to demonstrate its superiority with statistics, a requirement for introducing radical changes in education. The tendency to avoid substantial change in second-language teaching is expected…

Describes a two-week lesson on electric fields that combined lecture, interactive video, lab experimentation, computer spread sheets, and computer-assisted-graphing. (PR)

Presents a secondary lesson plan based on primary sources recently released by the Central Intelligence Agency on the Cuban Missile Crisis. Provides a background essay on the event. Includes five maps and three documents, all of which have been declassified from top secret or secret status. (CFR)

Explores commonalities and differences between the Reggio Emilia approach and the developmentally appropriate approach. Points to differences in eight areas: (1) scheduling; (2) grouping children for activities; (3) planning; (4) teacher attitudes; (5) products of work and play; (7) parent conferences; and (8) continuity. (BGC)

Describes a university curriculum integration project for education and noneducation majors that pairs a preservice course in educational foundations with a general education course in sociology. The courses include discipline-specific objectives but are taught using collaborative pedagogy. The centerpiece is an integrative, field-based research…

Profiles a third-/fourth-grade thematic unit developed to introduce students to contemporary global society and its economic and environmental interdependence. The unit simulates a trip to foreign countries and integrates mathematics, music, art, and language. Various assignments are included in the student's portfolio. (MJP)

Examined the teaching behaviors of 37 Mexican American mothers using an everyday task and a school-related task. Findings indicated that for the everyday tasks, mothers relied on various verbal utterances to guide their children to task completion, whereas for school-related tasks, they relied on nonverbal instructional behaviors. (TJQ)

Essential components in second-language teaching include motivating students, teaching in the target language, using a language-management system, accepting interlanguage in the early stages, emphasizing vocabulary, teaching function and grammar, consulting Canada's National Core French Study to understand and deliver the latest programs, and…

Summarizes research on educational programs that use stigmatized varieties of English in the classroom, and reviews relevant theory and research in psycholinguistics and second language acquisition. Research on educational programs shows that using the stigmatized variety in formal education seems to have a positive effect on the acquisition of…

This article describes the use of a management simulation in a Chinese university during the spring semesters of 1997, 1998, and 2000. Although administrative difficulties presented special problems, Chinese university administrators were interested in introducing this form of experiential learning. Student reaction was positive. Participating in…

The interactive science notebook (ISN) is a perfect opportunity for science educators to encapsulate and promote the most cutting-edge constructivist teaching strategies while simultaneously addressing standards, differentiation of instruction, literacy development, and maintenance of an organized notebook as laboratory and field scientists do.…

In this article, the authors report on a new type of case study, called real-time case method (RTCM), which was produced and taught at four business schools. This new method of developing cases was applied in a course on entrepreneurship. The authors describe it and evaluate its effectiveness. RTCM was conducted over the course of one university…

Many U.S. students speak nonstandard forms of English, yet dialect issues are slighted in teacher education programs and literacy courses. In this study, classroom teachers who spoke Standard American English (SE) were familiarized with seven syntactic features characterizing African American English (AAE). Three approaches to instruction based on…