This unit provides a guide for teachers looking for creative and effective ways to teach intercultural understanding through the interactive use of artifacts. The guide offers practical suggestions for using the boxes, a series of teaching tips, suggestions for making the boxes and sample lesson plans on Japan. Sections include: (1) "The Concepts…

This guide addresses community-based art learning experiences in both theory and practice. After making a convincing case for community-based art curricula, a wide range of instructional strategies are outlined. Suggested lessons represent visual odysseys beyond the classroom. These focus on the school yard, the city block, a five minute walk, a…

This book shows how and why the computer is so well suited to producing discovery learning environments. An examination of the literature outlines four basic modes of instruction: didactic, Socratic, inquiry, and discovery. Research from the fields of education, psychology, and physiology is presented to demonstrate the many strengths of…

This book presents the National Science Resources Center's (NSRC's) strategic planning model for bringing about district-wide elementary science reform in accordance with the National Science Education Standards. The NSRC model views the elementary science program as a cohesive system that includes: a research-based, inquiry-centered science…

This book represents a compilation of the views and ideas of the late Hans Freudenthal, representing his last major contribution to the field of mathematics education. Rather than a presentation of new views, Freudenthal selected and streamlined old ideas, many gathered from his lectures in China, and formed a review of questions and issues in…

This paper is a how-to manual for doing poetic mini-dramas (PMD) with elementary school students. It describes the possibilities for discovery learning through the dramatization of poetry, lists initial suggestions for the teacher and the actual steps in the process, and reports the attitudes and vocabulary growth of second and third graders after…

A five-step method of conflict analysis can help students generate accurate and complex theme statements about literature without teacher intervention. The conflict analysis involves (1) identifying the characters who are in conflict as a series of pairs and determining if the protagonist has an inner conflict; (2) determining the major conflict,…

This guide for starting a school garden is Book One in Project Life Lab's (Santa Cruz, California) three-part curriculum for a garden-based science and nutrition program for grades 2-6. The curriculum is designed for use as an integrated program, but the books can be used independently. It is suggested that the use of student journals can greatly…

Computers in non-school settings, educational computer games, and education without schools are the primary topics covered in this three-section paper. The first section describes the use of personal computers in two different, non-school environments: the home and computer clubs. A "diary study" by Yaakov Kareev is summarized, in which…

In workshops for teachers the author provides each participant with five sticks and challenges them to create a variety of configurations. In the process the teachers hypothesize and test a number of geometric notions. (SD)

Four curricular models are contrasted: the performance model (which is exemplified by most college curricula), closed and open contrast models, and the "experimenting community" in which learning experiences emerge from a process of interaction. This latter approach is elaborated upon in terms of its emphasis on nurturing improvisational learning,…

Discusses how "Messing About" may lead to exploratory learning and, ultimately, to steady growth in productive thought and problem-solving ability. Emphasizes the role of classroom organization and teacher-models of competence in facilitating autonomous interest. (CS)

Teaching history with original documents is a stimulus for the inquiry method of learning. A curriculum packet produced by the Oregon State Archives contains 24 historical document facsimiles with an accompanying instructors manual. Selected from the state archives with an explanation of each document and questions for discussion provided, the…

In one university, bibliographic labs were developed to help students retrieve and evaluate sources in the disciplines of history and literature. The labs were designed not only to provide training in the skills necessary for preparing a research presentation and paper, but to build on the foundation of faculty-librarian-student collaboration to…

Secondary school and college students can learn how to shape thought through shaping language by using tagmemic heuristics. To approach writing as a thinking process, students apply three heuristics: one for identifying and stating problems, one for exploring problems, and one for evaluating hypotheses or solutions. Guided by a series of…