Reports on a study that utilized surveys, interviews, and a modified focus group to examine the perceptions of graduate students regarding the effectiveness of computer-conferencing communication on higher-order learning. Recommendations for effective computer conferencing are included that address organization of content, small-group interaction,…

A first-year course in the computer-based educational media design curriculum at the University of Twente (Netherlands) uses the World Wide Web as an integrated course environment; collaborative group-based learning is the basis of the instruction. The Web is used to make evaluation-oriented activities part of the ongoing student experience.…

New neuroscientific knowledge is redefining possibilities for K-12 education. There are five critical variables in the brain's learning process: neural history, context, acquisition, elaboration, and encoding. This article tracks one student's unique brain activity throughout her school day to illustrate these variables. (MLH)

Personalized instruction focuses specifically on each learner's needs, talents, learning style, interests, and academic background and challenges each learner to progress from one stage to another. This article presents a four-phase continuum of personalized teaching strategies, ranging from behavioral approaches (reinforcement and feedback)…

Describes the use of interactive group journals in a graduate preservice Teaching English-as-a-Second-Language course. Students passed a computer disk around, each writing about issues and concerns and responding to the others. This collaboration acted as a catalyst for papers and projects and a forum for the creation and testing of original ideas…

Sea Grant's investment in university-level education shows a diversity of avenues for supporting students from experience-based internships, merit scholarships, and fellowships to team-based multidisciplinary undergraduate education. Describes such programs as Undergraduate Research Opportunities in ocean engineering, graduate research…

Presents a framework for helping low-achieving pupils through reinforcement in technology at high school. Findings indicated an improvement in pupils' self-efficacy and increased motivation to study at the present and in the future. In the pupils' eyes, the main features were construction activities, team projects and free study, and the major…

Reports on the ways in which one teacher's teaching of trainee-teachers was adapted to reflect the principles she wanted them to explore in relation to their own work. Drawing on Vygotsky's concept of relational imitation and Dewey's notion of learning through direct experience, suggests ways of challenging the transmission paradigm and…

Discusses principles to use in evaluating online university courses, including student-faculty contact; cooperation among students; active learning, including course projects; prompt feedback; time on task, including the need for deadlines; high expectations; and respecting diverse talents and ways of learning. (LRW)

A review of research in distance education indicates that results are consistent in that there is no significant difference in achievement attributable to the delivery system. This paper attempts to look beyond these studies by examining research related to: learner interaction and control, two different approaches to multiple learning styles, and…

Investigated the additive effect of teachers' training in Consistency Management and Cooperative Discipline (CMCD) on a constructivist mathematics program in Chapter I elementary schools. Upper elementary school students of teachers skilled in both CMCD and constructivist mathematics showed higher achievement gains than students from schools with…

Studied collaborative reasoning in 86 seventh-grade minority students in an urban low-income school. Students who collaborated had higher percentages of fully correct explanations on the posttest than those who worked alone. Collaborative experiences were beneficial for reasoning about unfamiliar, moderately difficult, nonverbal problems. (SLD)

Reports findings of ethnographic research into second-language lectures conducted at a university in Hong Kong. Six sociocultural features of second-language lectures are discussed: purposes of lectures, roles of lecturers, styles of lecturing, simplification, listener behavior, and humor. (31 references) (Author/CK)

This article makes a case for special classes for gifted students and answers objections to special classes raised by the middle school movement and the cooperative learning movement. A sample "Celebration of Me" unit taught to gifted seventh graders which involved poetry, literature, personal development, art, music, and physical fitness is…

Argues that few studies have investigated the value that students place on the use of peer responses. Describes a study that found that students did not place much value on the activity and highlights a pilot course that allows students to choose to use peer responses or not. (14 citations) (MAB)