It can be very difficult for writers to invent classroom communities, to share their writing; it can be especially difficult for anxious young writers who have never before worked in peer groups. Student participation is largely influenced by gender roles shaped by years of socialization. Teachers should not be startled by less female…

Over the past several years, teachers at the West Virginia University Child Development Laboratory have used the language experience approach to develop the literacy skills of young children. To increase child involvement, a scrapbook project for 4-year-olds was conducted each Wednesday for 1 academic year. Each child received a scrapbook and…

To provide practical suggestions based on solid theory, this book emphasizes using newspapers in the context of broader classroom methodologies that have proved successful in the education of language minority students. In developing these practical activities, the book stresses three main elements of research in this area: (1) how second-language…

This study examined to what extent teachers who choose to take a course about cooperative learning implement the innovation and which factors account for variation in use of cooperative learning in their classrooms. Nine female elementary teachers were observed and interviewed. Teachers were categorized as effective users, competent users,…

In the most recent wave of school reform, educators are beginning to move past learning about American Indian culture, to learning from Indian cultural ways and using them to improve their instructional practice. Recent developments in federal educational policy, such as the Improving America's School Act and Goals 2000 have opened the door to…

This book assists teachers to understand why basing instructional practices on cognitive theories of instruction can better prepare students to become strategic learners. The volume synthesizes and distills findings from current research and identifies instructional components that enable teachers to implement strategy instruction in the basic…

This study examined the effects of self-evaluation on student performance in mathematics. Grade 5 and 6 students (N=300) were randomly assigned in intact classes to treatment and control groups. In both conditions a 2-week cooperative learning unit on probability was implemented. In the treatment condition, students received training in…

This paper reviews the authors' attempts to find appropriate interaction analysis/content analysis techniques to assist in examining the negotiation of meaning and co-construction of knowledge in collaborative learning environments facilitated by computer conferencing. This study was undertaken in order to find appropriate interaction analysis…

This brief bulletin addresses seven "myths" of tracking or ability grouping with gifted students in response to what is seen as a current movement against both ability grouping and tracking, which are characterized by the "anti-tracking" movement as inflexible and unaccommodating of a varied schedule. The following myths are countered: (1)…

An action research project described a program for expanding multiple intelligences to increase reading comprehension in both English and math. The targeted population consisted of ninth, tenth, and eleventh grade students located in a south suburb of Chicago, Illinois. The problem of reading comprehension was documented through data revealing…

Cooperative learning is being recommended as a solution for numerous education problems, from enhancing disadvantaged children's self-esteem to ensuring academic success for all students. Cooperative learning has great potential as a supplement or alternative to traditional teaching methods when students are adequately socialized and motivated.…

Taking a report on the effects of cooperative completion of cloze by Jacobson (1990) as its point of departure, this study used English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students to investigate the potential of the cloze procedure and of group work for learning, including its usefulness as an instructional or self-instructional procedure for language…

This theme issue of "Educational Foundations" contains five articles that utilize an array of foundational perspectives that give reader insight into the organization of schools, the viewpoints of children and parents, the ideological and political nature of community organizing, and mathematics instruction in the Soviet Union. In…

This bulletin focuses on cooperative learning with an emphasis on its use in science classrooms. A comprehensive review of the educational literature on cooperative learning is presented. Major sections of this document include the following: (1) why cooperative learning in science? (2) some characteristics of cooperative learning; (3) some…

This practicum was designed to incorporate the study of geography into a ninth grade world history class with the aim of improving student awareness of the influence of geography upon the historical development of ancient Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt. By means of a questionnaire and map tests it was determined that ninth grade world history…