In a 5-year evaluation of the $6.6 million Challenge 2000 Multimedia Project, technology-using students surpassed nonparticipating peers in developing critical 21st-century job skills. Multimedia Project students outperformed comparison students on content mastery, sensitivity to their audience, and coherent design capabilities. Standardized test…

Describes the development of a learning profile instrument prototype to help prepare college learners for learner-controlled instruction. Discusses learner strategies for increasing metacognitive and cognitive skills, academic motivation, required background knowledge, and self-efficacy, and reports results of testing that showed achievement gains…

Discusses the value of role-play in developing interpersonal skills and presents a 10-step model to help performance technologists design effective role-plays. Highlights include training objectives; designing assessment instruments; task analysis; generality and demonstration; designing social-communicative problems for the content; practice; and…

Describes a study that compared two formats, traditional and distance education, for a case analysis/case writing model in a graduate course in professional development. Discusses media theory; media attributes of realism, interactivity and feedback, and interface; knowledge acquisition; skill development; confidentiality; and networking.…

Examines fourth and fifth graders' ideas about historical evidence through a year-long qualitative study of two classrooms. Discusses the results, focusing on understanding the reliability of sources, evaluating evidence and reconciling conflicting accounts, and using evidence to reach conclusions. Addresses the implications for instruction. (CMK)

Discusses an art project for students in grades 4 to 6 (but that could be adapted for older students) who attend the Old Donation Center for the Gifted and Talented in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Explains that the students created mixed-media boxes that interpreted and synthesized the folklore and arts of a culture. (CMK)

Discusses four teaching methods that are fundamental to social studies instruction: (1) the lecture method; (2) guided discussion; (3) reading skills instruction; and (4) project-based instruction. Explains that these methods enable teachers to vary instruction, meet the needs of diverse learners, and develop student understanding. (CMK)

Expounds how the teachers at Ramirez Elementary School (Texas) have learned to use technology as a vehicle for teaching social studies and for enhancing their students' literacy skills. Offers different types of computer learning tools teachers can integrate into their classrooms and illustrates possible uses of the Internet. (CMK)

In April 2000, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics will release "Principles and Standards in School Mathematics," a revised document stressing conceptual understanding and reasoning. NCTM standards specify that curricula should emphasize five mathematical processes: problem solving, reasoning and proof, communication,…

Evaluates whether preservice primary teachers' confidence to teach music might be influenced by their experiences in a music fundamentals course. Reveals that this type of course developed their musical knowledge and skills and provided them with a strong model for teaching strategies that, in the end, significantly affected their overall…

Investigates how the process of knowledge formation in teaching and learning can be identified through teachers' definitions, decisions about assessments, and what criteria they use in an assessment situation. Reveals three dominant bipolar constructs among instrumental skills, expressive modes, creativity, and interpretative modes and two further…

Reviews the recent research on teaching and learning economics in the elementary classroom, such as whether children understand the economic world and correcting students' economic misconceptions. Maintains that students in elementary school are capable of learning and remembering economic concepts if they are taught in developmentally appropriate…

Explores the literature from physical education psychomotor research in order to answer questions concerning elementary music psychomotor skills acquisition and retention by focusing on four aspects of motor-learning theories: (1) knowledge of results; (2) contextual interference; (3) cognitive strategies; and (4) modeling. (CMK)

Reports on a survey conducted on TESL-L aimed at discovering whether English-as-a-Second-Language teachers have similar concepts of the process approach to writing or whether the concept has now evolved in different ways in different places. Survey results show teachers actually have strongly differing ideas as to what process writing is.…

An examination of the history of legal education covers the long period of law-office apprenticeship as the principal method of legal education in the United States and reviews trends in the period of formal education, the relationship between formal education and professional practice, the philosophical context for legal education, instruction in…