Growing in popularity among students and scholars, blogs are raising issues regarding free speech at colleges and universities. The new technology offers an exchange of ideas that wasn't as spontaneous--or even possible in some remote areas--previously. A blog can allow a scientist to share research with colleagues, ponder reasons for experimental…

Your students can be learning over summer vacation with these fun activities from the web. School will soon be out and your students will start summer vacation. How can you minimize "summer learning loss" over those days that kids are not in school? This year, send your students home with a Learning Log to record fun summer learning. It?s…

Several years ago, Gloria Brinkman developed an assessment tool for use in her art classes that is simple, efficient, and has proven to increase both student learning and student appreciation of the creative process. The format is based on a ten-point handwritten response to three specific prompts entered weekly in a journal. The journals can be…

This study explores informants' experiences in a reading/writing program that paired eighth-grade language arts students with elderly volunteers. Twenty-three pairs were followed over an academic year as they read books in common, corresponded in response journals, and met in person at program social events. Through analysis of interviews, their…

Reflective journals have become an increasingly popular tool used by numerous faculty across many disciplines in higher education. Previous research and narrative reports of journal writing have explored student perceptions of journal writing, but very little is understood about faculty perceptions. In this paper, we report on a study involving…

Dialogue journals, which involve teachers and students writing and exchanging their writing in mutual response, are often cited as a powerful tool for promoting reflection in teacher education. According to Bean and Zulich (1989), dialogue journal writing is a good way to model the process of reflective practice for preservice teachers. However,…

In the training of students to work in the area of serious mental illness (SMI), it is essential that students learn about people before they learn about diagnosis, medications, and neurotransmitters gone awry. This paper describes an experimental seminar in SMI for first semester freshmen. Student, client, agency, and teacher perspectives are…

The effects of a cancer diagnosis can be devastating and far-reaching. Expressive-supportive group therapy has proven useful for treating patients struggling with many of these effects. In addition, individual therapeutic writing methods have shown benefit for many individuals addressing a variety of difficult life circumstances including cancer.…

The author, who worked as an adjunct while completing doctoral coursework in English education, had been teaching for 10 years but during most of that time had been a high school teacher. While working in an alternative high school, she had a great deal of freedom in instituting a critical literacy approach and social justice curriculum. The…

In this article, the author, a teacher at Gould School in North Caldwell, New Jersey, describes the five writing rules she employs in her classroom that can help make writing a priority for both students and teachers: (1) Put it in the plan book; (2) Write first, solve problems later; (3) Write with the students; (4) Write like the students; and…

This article describes our experiences as six faculty members at a mid-sized state college whose collaboration grew into a substantive endeavor to improve writing pedagogy and practice across our disciplines of English, Educational Studies, Instructional Technology, Educational Psychology and Counseling. Within our practice, we approach writing in…

Prospective teachers in their third year of a Bachelor of Education degree in secondary teacher education use a journal to respond to a range of questions about their experiences as learners prior to, during and after their first practicum. These stories are used as a source of data to analyze how 14 prospective secondary teachers understand the…

Problem-based learning (PBL) is a pedagogical method that challenges students to think intuitively, learn cooperatively in groups to seek solutions to real world problems. These problems are used as the building blocks to engage students' curiosity and initiate independent learning of subject matter. Authentic, alternative assessment plays a key…

This article reports findings from a qualitative study of preservice teachers' beliefs about the contexts of urban teaching. Participants were in their first semester of a K-6 licensure program designed to prepare them for urban teaching. Interviews and email reflective journal exchanges with the researcher were the data of the study, and…

Journal writing is generally required of student teachers; however, there is a void in career and technical education research regarding this activity. The purpose of this study was to examine student teachers' journal writing experiences to obtain insight into the process of developing reflective practitioners. The study drew on the work of Dewey…