Describes the Discovery Room at the National Museum of Natural History, a hands-on exhibit area intended to help children and adults learn about their environment. (MP)

Describes recent publications and traveling exhibition services (and related materials) of the Smithsonian Museum. (RH)

Suggests that reading be taught through the social studies and by the experience approach on the elementary school level. An activity is described in which a short story, "Ann's Special Family," provides the focus for developing vocabulary and bringing real-life experiences into focus. (DB)

To insure that the school play was an actual learning experience, third-graders were allowed to make the decisions about sets, costuming, script, and rehearsals. (SJL)

"The Educational Imagination: On the Design and Evaluation of School Programs" by Elliot W. Eisner is reviewed. (JD)

Learning-disabled kids in a farmhouse classroom. (Editor)

A teacher and her students explore the structure of "bubbles" in comic books. Evaluating the use of narration in comics led to the use of narration in books and how characters relate in stories. (Author/RK)

Pictures of rubbings are used to aid young children in creating their own sense of artistic expression. (RK)

Describes an introductory horizontal caving experience for college-age women who were uncomfortable with their bodies, insecure with movement, and unwilling to take big risks. The darkness and quiet of the cave released inhibitions and promoted group cohesion, feelings of intimacy and safety, self-discovery, and self-confidence. (SV)

In 1937, four young women, three of whom were teachers in one-room schools in rural Maine, set off on an eight-week cross-country trip to California. They decided to take the trip so they could teach from first-hand experience. Together they saved $1,200 and then visited 30 states, Washington, D.C., and 2 Canadian provinces. (LP)

A process for translating experience into college-level learning involves identifying relevant experiences and types: (1) a single experience leading to a single learning topic; (2) a single experience leading to several topics; or (3) several experiences leading to a single topic. Visual representations of these types help students validate the…

Discusses the relationship between instructional design and situated learning. The transfer of knowledge and skills to a variety of settings is considered; and ways in which instructional design can contribute to the goals of situated learning are described, including planning learning experiences that are situated in the real world. (24…

Explains practical considerations in developing cross-campus partnerships that support connections between in- and out-of-class experiences. Major obstacles to developing partnerships are identifying support and resistance, maintaining effective strategies, timing, seeing the terrain, managing logistics, and learning quickly. Offers case study of…

Interviews with 92 nursing students over age 21 in Northern Ireland found the college was not meeting the needs of students with high levels of work experience and education, which were not recognized. They perceive themselves as more motivated and better able to study independently than younger students. (SK)

Grounded teaching and learning based on grounded theory involves continuous collection and analysis of data; hypotheses formed, rejected, and reformed during the process; and the data (learners' self-reporting of their learning experiences) as the focal point of activity. (SK)