This conference report contains selected presentations and panel discussions concerning the experiences of faculty and students with learner-oriented approaches to college teaching. Following a welcome address by Kenneth R. R. Gross-Louis and keynote addresses by Faith Gabelnick and Linda Harasim, papers are organized in two categories:…

A special needs teacher and a fifth-grade teacher developed a literature-based reading program based on the principle that no child, particularly the unskilled, should be excluded from a literature group. The program places a high value on talk and uses heterogeneous grouping of students. Students in the class choose the novels they wish to read…

Four classroom activities useful for language immersion instruction are described and specific applications and extensions are noted. All are best used to teach content and language at the same time. The first, entitled "Think-Pair-Share," is a cooperative learning technique that increases student participation in classroom experiences and…

A study investigated the effectiveness of a Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition (CIRC) program in an elementary school bilingual classroom with exclusively Mexican-American students (n=35). Because cooperative learning strategies are based on peer interaction and participants contributing to the common goal, the videotaped interactions…

Originally developed for the Department of Defense Schools (DoDDS) system, this learning package on collaborative and cooperative learning techniques is designed for teachers who wish to upgrade or expand their teaching skills on their own. The package includes a comprehensive search of the ERIC database; a lecture giving an overview on the topic;…

In 2002, the University of California, San Diego ArtsBridge America program initiated a project that was designed to address the lack of standards-based geography content and culture-based arts instruction within San Diego elementary schools.

This cooperative lesson for students of English as a Second Language (ESL) has students from different cultural and language backgrounds write folk tales from their native cultures and compile them into a book. Each four-member team is constructed based on student variables, including ethnicity, personality, academic ability, language functioning,…

In July and August 1989 the Delaware-Chenango Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) piloted the Summer Telelearning for Academic Renewal (STAR) program, a telecommunications-based program aimed at reducing the potential for at-risk eighth graders to drop out of school. Students were selected for the program by their home schools on the…

Drawing from a review of the literature and a comparative study of evaluation techniques, this paper offers a rationale for the use of performance appraisal as a method of evaluating student writing. The literature review covers: (1) various roles played by composition teachers, including the students' audience of one, writing coach, and Socratic…

Good language users monitor and understand their own involvement in the learning process. They understand how language is used to make and reshape their world. Everyone needs to be allowed to test his or her personal theories of the world against practice and vice versa. Given the nature of society, it is important that conceptions of literacy…

A case study explored the composing processes of two grade one students to determine the role of the computer as a learning tool in the first grade classroom. Analysis of the texts of the children's writing and transcriptions of the tape-recorded collaborative exercise in writing and computer use by the children revealed that young children, given…

This monograph includes eight papers which were presented at a joint conference of the Conservation Education Association and The North American Association for Environmental Education in 1989 at Estes Park, Colorado and a summary paper. The first three papers are on preservice teacher education; five discuss inservice teacher education. Papers…

The declining emphasis on science, mathematics, and engineering education in the United States together with the necessity of the nation to ensure a continuous supply of trained practitioners in those fields was the consideration that prompted the conference reported in this document. The conference participants--who were representatives of the…

This document outlines a program for schools to encourage the development of values, attitudes, and knowledge foster constructive interpersonal relationships. Cooperative learning, conflict resolution, structured controversy, and school mediation can form the core of a comprehensive program for educating beyond hate. Cooperative learning includes…

A practicum incorporating cooperative problem-solving and cooperative process writing was developed to improve attitudes toward writing and to improve writing skills. The participants, 28 heterogeneously grouped grade 12 students, worked in cooperative learning groups throughout a summer session to develop their writing and their problem-solving…