Provides a number of reading and discussion exercises on issue-oriented questions (such as "overpopulation") that may be used for just about any level of English-as-a-Second-Language instruction. Suggests a role-play exercise in imitation of the television show "Dating Game." (TB)

The Merit Workshop Calculus Program, based on Treisman-style workshop calculus, was intended to address the problems of low success rates of students from underrepresented populations and the failure to retain these students in mathematics- and science-based majors. Concludes that the program had a positive impact for both genders and several…

Describes how multipoint desktop video conferencing (MDVC) is used in preservice teacher education programs in Singapore to enhance the professional development of student teachers by allowing them to share ideas, experiences, and teaching resources in real time with an audience wider than the schools in which they teach. Summative evaluations…

GoodSport is an after-school program for grades 3-6 that uses traditional and nontraditional sports, adventure activities, reading, writing, and group discussion to promote character development in the areas of teamwork, perseverance, responsibility, respect, and fair play. Two sample activities involving group discussion and problem solving are…

Explains the importance of student teachers performing the learning tasks they assign to their students in order to understand the nature and purpose of each task and its unique demands on teachers and students. The paper recommends guiding student teachers to develop their own abilities and view their teaching roles as nurturers of their own…

Examines how pseudonymous identification in a computer-mediated communication (CMC) context might: (1) reflect a motivation for gender-based status parity and (2) mitigate supposed gender-based communication differences associated with social interdependence. Subjects were 114 undergraduate students who participated in computer-based…

Traces growth of the Teaching Community model at Australia's Monash and Swinburne universities; the model uses group meetings to encourage professional development of teaching staff. Elaborates on the model's successes and why it has been powerful in bringing about change in an area known for resistance, and proposes conditions required for this…

Conversation is a basis for critical thinking. It is the thread that ties together cognitive strategies and provides students with the practice that becomes the foundation for reading, writing, and thinking. In recent years, proficient reader research has yielded information about what good readers do as they comprehend text. This article provides…

This article discusses two twentieth-century stock market crashes: the crash of 1929 and the crash of 1987. When this material is presented to students, they see important parallels between the two historical events. But despite remarkable similarities in the severity and many other aspects of the two crashes, the crash of 1929 was followed by the…

"Informal Forum," grounded in constructivism has been developed to foster active learning and deep understanding. Learning is an interdependent process, and is most effective when students construct their own meaning of knowledge. If one believes in the value of constructivist learning, it is important to teach how we preach in higher education.…

How should a teacher respond when a student makes off-base guesses about meaning in a literary text because that learner is trying to genuinely understand the story rather than find the "right" meaning? Aukerman argues that when teachers jump in to correct students' interpretations, they short-circuit students' processes of reading and thinking.…

A particularly innovative use of laptops is to enhance the music appreciation experience. Group listening and discussion, in combination with a new Web-based application, lead to deeper understanding of classical music. ["Appreciating Music: An Active Approach" was written with Joshua Austin.]

Teachers at two urban elementary schools with a history of low student achievement in reading met in weekly study groups to engage in structured dialogue about teaching practice. These groups were established through the support of the Urban Literacy Institute, a joint project of Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, and the Dayton, Ohio,…

One hundred and eighty British secondary school pupils aged 11-12 and their six trainee teachers in five schools participated in an action research project, designed to improve the quality of children's group talk in English lessons, particularly their engagement in higher-order thinking through "exploratory" talk. The programme,…

Current research on language learning makes many claims about the potential benefits of small group work in L2 classrooms. With the relatively recent emphasis on students' perspectives, there is now a growing number of investigations that focus on learners' beliefs about the language classroom. In this study, 21 students and their teachers…