Article describes a new technique in reporting the results of discussion groups to the plenary session of a small conference. Instead of one person from each group writing a report, each group restaged its discussion for 15 minutes before the whole conference, concentrating on major points and conclusions. (PD)

Warns of the possible dangers of encounter groups. (JF)

This article describes a system that autonomously mediates threaded discussions in distance learning environments. The objective is to produce large-scale threaded discussions among an arbitrary number of participants with no human mediation effort.

This article considers the complex process of having students cross the boundaries of race, class, and culture in the Open Choice program, a remedy designed to reduce the racial, social, and economic isolation of Connecticut school children in the wake of the ruling in the Sheff v. O'Neill (1996) desegregation case. Using transcripts from three…

Excerpts from current research with people who have autism using online discussion groups are provided. Two major themes emerged that focus on "expert" knowledge of autism and identity. In contrast to the image of people with autism being unable to speak for themselves, our research on chat rooms has demonstrated that these individuals are finding…

Classroom discourse is structured by socially accepted ways in which knowledge is presented and by established procedures for carrying out educational activities. However, the underlying linguistic and social ground rules are usually implicit, for students as well as for teachers. The implicitness of these ground rules has been attributed to…

This article is based on a study which investigated the beliefs about English language learning of 661 first-year university students and their 34 English teachers at a Japanese university. The focus of the article is the shifts in reported student beliefs over a nine-month period of English study between two administrations of the Sakui and Gaies…

Only about half of new teachers report that they feel prepared to teach reading when they enter the profession. This research study focused on six elementary teacher candidates enrolled in a reading methods course combined with a reading practicum. The teacher candidates participated in an ongoing collaborative community discussion group…

Effective online instructional practices may be applied to online and blended college courses. Carefully orchestrated online discussions support learning well beyond the limited face-to-face course time. Students gain greater depth of academic understanding and leadership skills if cooperative learning groups use research-based process and…

The engagement of immigrant children in literature discussion groups in an elementary school classroom in the United States is studied in this article. The analysis shows how the students' responses are embedded in translocal movements across places, time, and people that can be characterized as constructing dynamic cultural flows. The findings…

Facilitation is a key factor in ensuring the success of class discussions. Traditionally, instructors are the ones who assume the role of facilitators in discussions. Online learning environments open opportunities for students to assume the role of facilitators. In well-designed online learning communities, spontaneous facilitation would likely…

The purpose of this article is to examine the communication behaviors of online leaders, or those who influence other members of online communities in triggering message replies, sparking conversation, and diffusing language. It relies on 632,622 messages from 33,450 participants across 16 discussion groups from Google Groups that took place over…

The goal of this study was to assess the effects of a school-based smoking prevention programme that used both a video and peer-led discussion groups among Romanian junior high school students aged 13-14 years. The programme embraced the social influence approach and concentrated on enhancing self-efficacy and the acquisition of cigarette refusal…

The present study focuses on comparing the impact of role assignment and cross-age peer tutors on students' level of knowledge construction in 15 asynchronous discussion groups of nine students each in a first-year university course (N=135). Content analysis was applied to analyse the level of knowledge construction in students' online postings.…