By analyzing its own development (financial canvassing) efforts, a young church in the Midwest found guidelines for using group meetings to improve program planning. (LY)

Describes structured discovery approach to inquiry teaching which encourages the teacher to select instructional objectives, content, and questions to be answered. The focus is on individual and group activities. A brief outline using this approach to analyze Adolf Hitler is presented. (KC)

Interviews with 19 nursing students (from a cohort of 135) indicated that they liked reflective groups for support but there was little evidence of a theory-practice link or stimulation of reflection-on-action. Practice discussions tended to emphasize dramatic and emotionally charged situations. There was a need for understanding about the…

Argues that family literacy programs can use children's literature as a vehicle for adults to explore their experiences, to develop a tolerance for different points of view, and to find time to engage in personal reflection. (SR)

Discusses the process of debriefing following a simulation game and the role of the facilitator in debriefing. Guidelines, including specific activities and questions the facilitator might ask, are suggested for the three phases of debriefing--description, analogy/analysis, and application. (MES)

Presents methodology and results of the focus group interviews with 21 people from elementary and secondary schools and 17 people from institutions serving adults which were conducted as part of an evaluation of the Career Information System of Iowa. Discusses the advantages and disadvantages of focus groups and additional applications to career…

Group discussions tend to focus on information that was previously known by all members (shared information) rather than information known by only 1 member (unshared information). If the shared information implies a suboptimal alternative, this sampling bias is associated with inaccurate group decisions. The present study examines the impact of 2…

A facilitator is considered to act intentionally when they are deliberate about what they are doing and can provide rationales for their actions. The same facilitator is said to practice intuitively when they are not able to articulate a clear rationale for their actions, yet they are still able to facilitate effectively. A review of the…

This article discusses the pedagogical implications of using Internet chat in simulations for second-language learners. The author reviews several published simulations and explains how to use Internet chat effectively in the classroom. The author also relays her experience with using Internet chat with the BULLYING simulation.

We discuss an upper division applied statistics course that has been structured to satisfy our college's writing intensive requirements within the mathematics major. In this course, students complete two projects, performing both a statistical survey and a controlled experiment, and then write up their work on each project in a formal paper. After…

In this article, the author talks about "Safe Space," an after school program created by a parent-teacher advisory board which maintained that students needed a safe in-school environment where they could openly talk about their out-of-school lives. Being that the school's curriculum heavily focused on academic standards, students' affective…

Learning Study provides a distinctive model for collaborative practice in teacher development. It combines the intensive "plan-teach-review" model developed by the Japanese "Lesson Study" model with a focus on the outcomes of learning using variation theory. We present an argument for expecting this approach to help trainees in initial teacher…

The success of each nation will depend on the agility (see www.edgility.net) of its citizens to acquire and utilize knowledge. In response to this imperative governments have crafted and followed rigorous educational strategies. For example, the European Union's Lisbon Agreement outlines an agenda for education and training focusing on educational…

The focus of this paper is on knowledge-building in a technology-supported learning environment in higher education through a longitudinal study of a graduate course from 2003 to 2007. The primary question is: how do learning conditions designed into a graduate course contribute to collaborative knowledge building? In particular, two major…