Describes the development of an Intermediate Center, adjacent to the existing K-12 schools, within a fast-growing community. Designed for children in 5th-7th grades, the center includes a special education classroom that incorporates the needs of students with a variety of disabilities. The L-shaped classroom allows for teacher eye contact with…

Describes Strategy Access Rods (SARs), balsa-wood, prism-like or rectangular rods on which a one-sentence reading strategy phrase in the first person is printed. Notes SARs serve as a visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile reminder of the strategies available to developing readers. Discusses use of SARs for word recognition and comprehension.…

Physicians in three communities (n=31) participated in four problem-based learning modules via videoconferencing. Posttest scores were 20% higher and learners reported an average of nine practice changes. Facilitators and observers reported a number of technical difficulties. Facilitators found videoconferencing slightly more difficult than…

Investigates the interactions of 16 first-grade children during one academic year as they participated in literacy events with their peers. Suggests that issues related to peer acceptance and reading competence complicate children's interactions during collaborative literacy events. Presents concepts critical to understanding how children with…

Discusses a team-oriented formal testing method used in a mathematical modeling course taught during the Alma College intensive spring term. Asks the question, If a collaborative teaching method is used, how does one assess students' acquisition of problem-solving and mathematical-thinking skills? (Author/MM)

Presents a discovery lesson in which students investigate the limit of angle measures formed by repeatedly folding a strip of paper. (KHR)

Describes three teaching approaches to help students transition from high school to college: (1) remedial or developmental instruction; (2) learning centers and tutoring; and (3) supplemental instruction. Discusses the main reasons that students experience problems in college introductory biology and investigates students' achievement in…

Discusses aspects of one teacher's responses to students' writing that have survived over the years. Argues that students (1) should write for a teenage audience; (2) deserve written and oral responses from their peers; and (3) benefit from successes shared with their parents. Suggests that responses to writing begin with content, which makes…

Describes "collectivist composing" where the social relations enacted by the class, while writing together, are shaped by the students who are both writing together and studying the relations they make. Suggests teachers open their classrooms so that they become places for communal meaning making and collectivist writing. (RS)

In a method called "cooperative controversy," students team up to study controversial subjects, then synthesize their findings. In a philosophy course, small-groups work on a specific philosophical problem. Group work was as effective as traditional lecture in three cases and more effective in two cases. (MLW)

Argues that unique collaborative learning possibilities exist in classes with both regular and academically talented or gifted students. Notes that research indicates that students of all ability levels learn more and have better attitudes when they work together as a group. Presents eight suggestions for group activities in the language arts. (RS)

Reviews the literature on Keller's Personalized System of Instruction (PSI), computer-assisted learning (CAL), computer conferencing (CC), and forms of instruction, then discusses how they can be integrated into a delivery system to enhance distance learning. Asynchronous individualized instruction and group instruction are also discussed. (28…

Analysis of first-grade reading instruction reveals that teaching contains important technological elements, which can be formulated as principles expressing coherent connections between means and ends; they pervade school-system organization and are not restricted to classes. Teaching is not largely intuitive, unpredictable, or resistant to…

Some ideas are presented for structuring student groups in second-language classes in a way to encourage them to work together more productively. Eight types of positive interdependence are explained. (Contains 14 references.) (LB)

In "Making Connections--Teaching and the Human Brain," the authors outline a new learning theory based on current research in the neurosciences. This theory has been applied to several schools, including a Rio Linda, CA, elementary school serving economically disadvantaged children. Schools as apprentice communities allow children to…