This report discusses efforts in adult English as a Second Language (ESL) education to link language instruction to workforce and civic skills (skills needed for successful participation in the community). It looks at the social forces that underlie these efforts (shifts in the U.S. economy, welfare reform, accountability requirements, and learner…

Reliability methodology needs to evolve as validity has done into an argument supported by theory and empirical evidence. Nowhere is the inadequacy of current methods more visible than in classroom assessment. Reliability arguments would also permit additional methodologies for evidencing reliability in classrooms. It would liberalize methodology…

This report describes a program to use various instructional strategies to increase student motivation in the learning process. The targeted population was high school students in a multicultural, middle-class community in a suburb of Chicago (Illinois) with 1,926 students. The problems of low participation, off-task behavior, and inadequate…

Productivity tools allow students to do something that was not possible without technology and then to share their results with others. In contrast to traditional software that encourages linear procedural processes, tool software is open-ended. Productivity tools include word processing, spread sheets, graphics, and telecommunications software.…

An interdisciplinary project was developed in which faculty and students learned to use writing in new and innovative ways. The 3-year project focused on five problems in the teaching and practice of college writing: the negative attitude of faculty towards the teaching of writing; the negative attitude of students towards writing; the relative…

The central research question in this study was whether structured active learning affects the abilities of science and engineering undergraduates to relate abstract concepts and realistic applications more than a relatively traditional instructional method. More specifically, the research was designed to determine whether differences in the…

This activity book is part of a series designed to take a concept or idea from the existing school curriculum and develop it in the context of the Great Lakes using teaching approaches and materials appropriate for students in middle and high school. The theme of this book is Great Lakes shipping. Students learn about the connections between the…

This simulation allows students to pretend to go to a one-room schoolhouse in the last half of the 19th century. Students work to earn points in order to graduate from Apple Valley School. A sense of history is developed as students learn about a "school of long ago" and compare it to today's schools. Role play, writing activities, and critical…

This simulation allows students to experience how their ancestors felt when they decided to emigrate to this country. The basic activity is a core simulation in which students role-play either an immigrant or an immigration processor at Ellis Island in 1900. The amount of time available determines additional enhancement options offered in the…

Educators are moving toward models of instruction that contain a myriad of interaction patterns among teachers and students. This shift from didactic teaching models to intensely involving designs is difficult for teachers, but is made easier if seen as a gradual change. This book provides an overview of 12 cooperative interaction designs for the…

this paper reviews the research on cooperative learning methods, with an emphasis on understanding the complex changes that occur in both classroom organization and student friendship patterns when cooperative, integrated learning groups are used in the desegregated classroom. Cooperative learning methods explicitly use the strength of the…

A "connected classroom" model was used for an educational psychology class which relied heavily on both face-to-face and Web-based collaborative discussion. As part of the class, students were required to participate in collaborative discussion that consisted of a structured environment in which students addressed open-ended questions…

This paper discusses the use of the Internet for international education. The first section addresses the context of international education. The second section focuses on the Internet as more than a research tool. The third section presents the following assumptions advocating for the integration of online technologies to enhance international…

This book provides information on what works in education, how teachers can find what works, how educational research can find its way into classrooms, and how teachers can apply it to help individual students. Data come from a meta-analysis of research studies on instructional strategies that could be used by K-12 teachers. Nine research-based…

Many cooperative learning programs are merely exhibitions of the willingness to work with others. They apply teams of people to do work that could be accomplished just as well by individuals. Successful programs focus on collaborative learning that fosters working together to solve problems beyond the capacity of any individual. A cooperative…