Online learning critically relies upon good communication between engaged parties in order to convey ideas, meanings, and values. Emerging technologies in collaborative virtual environments are providing new affordances in establishing greater online presence and, in turn, greater abilities to communicate and learn. This study examines how…

The promise of university-public school partnerships as contexts for mutually beneficial learning, or "simultaneous renewal," has been well established (Goodlad, 1994, 1999). However, difficulties in creating and sustaining these kinds of collaborative contexts for teacher education are also well known, including practical challenges…

Purpose: This paper assesses the effectiveness of volunteer farmer trainers in promoting adoption of agricultural technologies in western Kenya. Specifically, the purpose was to assess the type of information they disseminated, farmer trainers' characteristics desirable to farmer trainees, and how trainees evaluate farmer trainers.…

This study investigates how a teacher study group collectively examined problems in their current English curriculum and redesigned the curriculum into theme-based lessons for various grades. Comprised of seven elementary school teachers and a teacher educator, the teacher study group met bi-weekly for three hours for a total of eight meetings.…

Observation of 16 university students of writing in English as a Second Language in Taiwan focused on the nature of interactions during three peer response sessions and one consensus exercise. It examined the kinds of comments made by a writing group in responding to peer writing and the characteristics of the verbal interaction in a consensus…

A study investigated how students of English as a second language (ESL) improved their use of learning strategies through awareness-raising in group interviews and informal training. Subjects were 68 Taiwanese university students in two freshman English classes. Subjects responded to an English learning strategy questionnaire in the beginning and…

Four interrelated research activities examined the missions of area vocational centers (AVCs) in Illinois and identified new and/or expanded roles and functions that AVCs might play in collaboration with sending schools, colleges and universities, business and industry, and other job training providers. The following activities were conducted: (1)…

The science discourse of young children is a means by which children can pose and try to answer difficult questions about their world. This paper describes through excerpts from transcripts of audiotapes and fieldnotes of science talks, how young children talk about science, and how they use metaphors and analogies to develop theories about…

High attrition rates among new teachers are of concern to teacher educators. Support mechanisms may help teachers feel less isolated in their new profession. Computer-mediated communication (CMC) technologies can connect novice teachers in ways that are both time and place independent. Most research on asynchronous online discussions has focused…

This study examines past and present public issue forums and their role in the United States political system. The first chapter describes traditional forms of the public forum such as town meetings, neighborhood societies, lyceums, university extension programs, and settlement house networks. Analyzed next are the content, organization, and…

The curriculum guide presents the activities component of the Human Development Program for grade 5. The Human Development Program (HDP) is an affective curricular approach developed by psychologists to help teachers instill responsibility and self-confidence in children. The activity guide presents topics and directions for 180 sequential Human…

The purpose of this study was to explore and investigate the ways faculty at the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina, obtain information to support their teaching tasks. Information and Library Science faculty at the University of North Carolina were chosen as the population for this study. The study…

Researchers define learning in many different ways, but all agree learning causes a permanent change in human behavior. The purpose of this DETC Occasional Paper is to illustrate how the principles of learning can facilitate the design of effective instruction. The authors first describe the principles of learning (contiguity, repetition,…

Three Spanish-speaking mothers of middle-school children, a relative of one of the mothers, a school librarian, and the researcher met regularly to establish a collaborative, two-way dialogue which would encourage social and educational equality and that would take contributions into consideration according to the validity of reasoning rather than…

Describes a school-university collaborative project in which elementary students paired with preservice teachers to discuss children's books electronically. The project introduced preservice teachers to Web-based discussions and provided opportunities for them to become more familiar with how elementary students respond to books. Samples of…