Focuses on the project "Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age: Reconceptualizing the Introductory Survey Course" that facilitates collaboration among faculty from two- and four-year colleges in Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Southern California in creating and disseminating active learning materials for use in World and U.S. history…

Discussion of academic library instruction focuses on the use of humor to make it more effective. Highlights include a literature review on humor in education, as a communication device, and use in the business sector; a stand-up comedy workshop; lecture humor; and humorous active learning activities. (LRW)

Investigates the role of talk, writing, and talk and writing on the learning and retention of simple and integrated knowledge, and describes the mechanisms by which talk and writing mediate these processes. Suggests that talk is important for sharing, clarifying, and distributing knowledge among peers, and writing is an important tool for…

Presents evidence against the use of standardized curricula and testing and in favor of discovery-based instruction. Describes a successful experience with a relatively new form of discovery-based instruction, the scenario educational computer software. (AEF)

Presents an overview of the evolution of experiential instruction theory and practice from its popular emergence in the late 1960s through the present. Simulations, games, and other experience-based instructional methods have had a substantial impact on teaching concepts and applications during this period, and have influenced traditional…

Forms part of a themed issue describing "Parent-Kid-Teacher Investigators," a program in which parents, children, and teachers gather regularly to use language and literacy for action research projects. Looks at the way involvement in the program nourished relationships among diverse individuals. Describes social relationships built at the…

Forms part of a themed issue describing "Parent-Kid-Teacher Investigators," a program in which parents, children, and teachers gather regularly to use language and literacy for action research projects. Discusses ways in which schools and families are alike in building a supportive environment for learning. Illustrates conditions contributing to…

Discusses the project approach in early childhood curriculum, a natural, teacher-supported companion to teacher-directed activities that develops basic skills and recognizes the child's need for hands-on experimentation to make learning meaningful. Describes the three phases of project approach: investigation, fieldwork, and display. Offers…

Professor of Education Yetta M. Goodman discusses her realization that teachers should showcase and support students rather than being the center of attention themselves, the importance of teachers observing their students in various contexts, the degrading aspect of grades, and the rights and responsibilities of teachers as professionals to state…

Suggests ways in which a teacher or visitor can tell whether children are gaining from their science activities: classroom presence of real things to learn from, children working with these materials, and more talking by students than by the teacher. Lists observational questions about student work, behavior, and communication that can be used to…

It is time to stop viewing rural schools and communities as deficient and build on their tremendous assets--small size, an understanding of the connection between humans and nature, greater access to civic life, strong school-community ties, a sense of place and community, and cultural diversity. Examples describe innovative programs initiated by…

Describes an exercise that combines outlined strategies to help students master the abstruse power of the linguistic relativity hypotheses in divining the relationship among language, thought, and culture in U.S. society. States the exercise accomplishes three important pedagogical tasks and that educator interaction with students motivates the…

The reasons to introduce formats of active learning in engineering (ALE) such as project work, problem-based learning, use of cases, etc. are mostly based on practical experience, and sometimes from applied research on teaching and learning. Such research shows that students learn more and different abilities than in traditional formats of…

There is substantial evidence that scientific teaching in the sciences, i.e. teaching that employs instructional strategies that encourage undergraduates to become actively engaged in their own learning, can produce levels of understanding, retention and transfer of knowledge that are greater than those resulting from traditional lecture/lab…

Design and technology (D&T) education involves learners coping creatively with complexity. It must take account of a wide range of often apparently conflicting demands and constraints: aesthetic, economic, political, ethical, social, and environmental as well as ergonomic, technical, and scientific. Case study tasks describe a relatively…