As higher education institutions struggle to meet the growing demand for education from non-traditional students, many are turning to hybrid and online courses. These courses, free up classroom space, allow faculty to reach a wider audience using technology; and are therefore cost effective. But, what learning experiences do these courses provide…

The purpose of this study was to examine the experiences of three science teachers attempting to transform their practice by conducting action research on feminist science teaching. The teachers engaged in systematic, self-critical inquiry of their own practice and joined 8 other science teachers to engage in collaborative conversations about the…

Online courses continue to gain popularity at colleges and universities, with a primary tool for demonstrating critical thinking and interaction being the discussion forum. Instructors and students of online courses are faced with the dilemma of sifting through potentially hundreds of postings when all students are placed within a forum. The…

Most biology teachers implement animal dissection (real or virtual) and often lead discussions on research involving animal subjects. Such activities provide excellent opportunities to explore ideas about ethical conduct in the care and use of animals. The challenge for teachers is to present information about animal care and use that enables…

Using a qualitative approach, this study investigated how the use of GIS technology affected fourth graders' geography learning and understanding of place. For this study, a GIS module was developed and implemented. The data gathering included transcripts from video and audio recordings of classroom instructions, interviews with the students and…

This interpretive case study explores an attempt to add an online component--the On-line Literacy Project--to a successful face-to-face professional development community. Participants were six members of the Literacy Project, which was carried out in the school board of a western Canadian city. The principal theoretical framework informing the…

Online learning is rapidly becoming a permanent feature of higher education. In a preponderance of instances, online learning is designed using conventional educational practices: lecture, grades, group discussion, and the like. Concerns with traditional pedagogy instantiated by course management systems raise questions about the quality of…

When one instructor began to use cooperative learning groups as a main teaching strategy in teacher education courses, she designed a large group oral exam format to take the place of traditional paper-and-pencil testing. The group oral exam format reduced text anxiety as there was no right or wrong response; it drew on both the cognitive and…

This paper describes the use of qualitative observation techniques for gathering and analyzing data related to group processes during an Accelerated Schools Model training session. The purposes for this research were to observe the training process in order better to facilitate present continuation and future training, to develop questions for…

Graduate programs which typically produce college instructors rarely teach "how to teach." There is an instructional tool, however, which is invaluable for developing instructional communication skills: the case method. It can also be an effective means of helping pre-service teachers develop teaching skills. The case method is an…

One of the prerequisites or unavoidable results of multiculturalism is that the classroom becomes what Mary Louise Pratt calls a "contact zone." But how does the teacher keep discussion productive without taking sides? How does the teacher abdicate enough authority to diminish the asymmetricality but not so much that the class becomes a…

All students enrolled in the entry level foundations course in the College of Education of Kutztown University (Pennsylvania) participate in home groups, a cooperative learning strategy. Each student is assigned to a five- or six-person home group on the first day of class. Although group placements are made on the basis of class lists, every…

In introductory psychology courses, the desire to cover content can conflict with the desire to acquaint students with psychological thinking processes. The IDEAL method is a group problem solving quiz technique which addresses both of these goals. In the process, instructors choose key concepts from a given reading and divide the class into…

Proceedings from the Sunbird Seminar for artists, art historians, and art educators from the California State University campuses are documented in this volume. The presentations included discussions about the national context for art education and teacher credentialing in California, the Snowbird projects sponsored by the Getty Center for…

This study sought to determine the effects of the Junior Great Books program on the higher level thinking skills of gifted/able learners and on interpretive reading skills development. Three groups of students were observed. They consisted of 83 elementary students in 2 experimental groups, all of whom participated in a Junior Great Books program,…