The goal of this curriculum is to assist educators to develop a classroom community in which all children, including those with significant disabilities, feel good about themselves and work together to support the active learning and valued membership of all class members. The specific goal of the lessons is to promote positive self-concept and…

A consistent lesson from the literature on school change is that no single method exists for improving schools. In that spirit, this book presents a collection of short articles that address a wide sampling of ideas and trends in educational change. All the articles were originally published in "Education Update," the official member…

This paper proposes a premise-based approach to translating courses from a classroom environment to an Internet environment, in which learning premises underlying classroom courses are extracted, then used as the basis for creating an Internet course. This approach is applied in developing an Internet section of an introductory management course.…

This book, a sequel to "Quick Hits," offers simple but successful strategies that award-winning teachers from Indiana University (IU) have found, through experience, to help promote learning in college classes. The original book grew out of the annual retreats of the Faculty Colloquium on Excellence in Teaching (FACET), an organization…

This book for primary grade teachers provides over 500 ideas and suggestions for designing the environment and developing learning activities in a child-centered classroom. Part 1 of the book focuses on the larger school environment, with suggestions for making the whole school inviting for parents and children. Part 2 provides ideas for making…

Preschool children need direct involvement with science content hands-on experiences that involve them in gathering, organizing, analyzing, and evaluating. This paper describes how to create a science area in a preschool classroom. The paper delineates the equipment needed to maintain a mentally stimulating environment for young children. It also…

A cross-national study of learning environments in Taiwan and Australia is one example of research that employs both qualitative and quantitative methods. This paper describes the part of that study related to the development and validation of an instrument called the Teacher Student Interaction (TSI) which assess student perceptions of teacher…

This paper responds to several social studies teachers' complaints that students are not reading on grade level, and therefore, not able to engage in classroom activities. The paper describes the development of sample lesson plans for middle school students and identifies effective assessment alternatives for teachers to use. Solutions presented…

This book provides practical implementation strategies for, and a clear outline of, the theory behind the child-centered classroom, a theory which involves an understanding of the concepts of whole language and active learning. It is hoped that teachers will use the ideas in the book to build their own beliefs and understandings, and to develop…

To date there has been no research done on teacher education programs that use whole language as a vehicle for instilling reflective forms of pedagogy. This study is an initial effort to develop a research base in this area. The study examined the socialization process of teachers who adopted the teaching perspectives of the whole language…

An instructional activity is educational only when students understand its meaning and apply their understanding to future situations. Outdoor educators seek to improve teaching and learning through direct experience but, if such experiences are to be meaningful and applied to life situations, teachers must help students learn from carefully…

Education, like experience in general, is not static but evolutionary. The writing classroom of the two-year college must and does function as a multicultural environment which replaces the traditional melting pot metaphor with images of mosaic and tapestry. Today, over 50% of college freshmen are enrolled in two-year colleges, and these include…

This report presents a research-based framework for identifying high-quality early childhood centers. Quality in a school-based early childhood center is identified by: (1) classroom parameters, including curriculum and adult-child interaction; (2) client parameters, relating to children, families, and communities; and (3) school structure…

This manual was developed in order to study the sociomoral atmospheres of three kindergarten classrooms. Previous research by Robert Selman et al. conceptualized developmental levels of interpersonal understanding in terms of two types of experiences: negotiation, where the developmental goal is identity separate from others; and shared…

A study investigated the range of methods and approaches used by teachers in Year 2 in teaching reading and writing, and the assumptions underlying these approaches. Headteachers of 122 nationally representative maintained schools in England and Wales completed a brief questionnaire giving mostly statistical information about their school. A…