This article presents a model for describing the range of types of support and instruction necessary to make inclusion successful for young children with disabilities. The building blocks include a high quality early childhood program, modifications and adaptations, embedded learning opportunities, and explicit child-directed instruction.…

Based on his interactive visualization Web site, the author explores the Web as a tool to build better metaphors for students and emphasizes the pedagogical power of the medium, which, he asserts, remains largely untapped. Discussion includes the use of temporal, special, and parametric process models to increase the pedagogical value of teaching…

Examines the ways in which authority and power operate in the classroom. Uses two metaphors to describe the poles of classroom dynamics (the love-relationship and the battlefield model). Suggests that the processes of writing and reading as interpretation and discovery can act as a more suggestive instructional model. (CMK)

Cost information was collected from five local education agencies that provided inclusive and traditional special education service options for preschool children with disabilities. Within-agency comparisons suggested that inclusive models were generally less expensive or comparable in cost to traditional forms of special education. Specific cost…

Develops a rationale for integrating technology with the social studies. Uses five principles of powerful teaching and learning in social studies (social studies that is meaningful, integrative, value-based, challenging, and active) as a framework to review the research literature related to social studies and technology. (CMK)

This paper attempts to clarify the field of teacher development by proposing a classification of approaches to teacher development that include the main theoretical models currently cited. The four approaches discussed include cognitive-structural, skill acquisition, reorientation of concerns, and life cycle. (Author/SM)

The Big6 Skills provide a framework for analyzing instructional variables and can be phrased as a series of questions for analysis: (1) Task Definition, (2) Information Seeking Strategies, (3) Location and Access, (4) Use of Information, (5) Synthesis, (6) Evaluation. A fictional seventh-grade teacher/class is used as an example of using the Big6…

Analysis of interviews with 55 undergraduate university students in Hong Kong finds student perceptions of teaching quality fit into four categories, or quadrants, formed from the interactions between their beliefs about learning (passive or active) and about teaching (transmissive or nontraditional). Results confirm the significance of implicit…

Discusses three factors that have contributed to the decline of eccelsiastical influences on the ethical decisions of Christians in the workplace. Considers the components of a business-ethics curriculum. Outlines one model for both teaching theological/philosophical bases for moral action and providing support groups for business people…

Highlights David Kolb's experiential learning model and examines learning preferences within the context of the model. Discusses implications and provides illustrations for each of the model's four stages: (1) concrete experience; (2) reflective observation; (3) abstract conceptualization; and (4) active experimentation. Provides six sample…

Discusses the major global trends that citizens of the new millennium must address and why critics question globalization. Asserts that a new conception of "citizen" is required, describing a form of citizenship education called multidimensional citizenship. Considers how to provide schools that are centers of citizen education. (CMK)

Offers ideas on how to incorporate the principles espoused by Stephen Covey with the music classroom: (1) be proactive; (2) begin with the end in mind; (3) put first things first; (4) think win/win; (5) seek first to understand, then to be understood; (6) synergize; and (7) improve skills. (CMK)

This commentary on C. Addison Stone's paper on the scaffolding metaphor for learning disabilities first suggests the flying buttress, which becomes integrated into a new structure, as a better metaphor. It suggests that scaffolded instruction depends on sophisticated shared assumptions about the conversational process. Evidence that some children…

This commentary on C. Addison Stone's paper on the scaffolding metaphor for the learning disabilities field urges that all available literature, rather than a particular metaphor, should be used to evaluate the efficacy of instructional procedures in interpreting findings of instructional research. (Author/DB)

This response by the original author to six commentaries on his paper concerning the scaffolding metaphor for learning disabilities highlights common themes (such as the basic dynamics of meaningful learning) and revisits arguments for and against the utility of the metaphor. Suggestions for broadening the metaphor to address related issues such…