In 1982, Mortimer Adler and other educators conceptualized the Paideia program as a way of reforming basic American schooling by replacing the system's inherent elitism with a truly democratic system accessible to all students. The three primary goals of the Paideia program are to prepare students to earn a living, be responsible citizens, and…

KidLink is a project that began in 1991 with the goal of putting children from around the world in touch with one another, largely through computer telecommunications. The Kids-91 project and its successor, Kids-92, introduced children to global communication on the KidLink network. Kids-91 posed four questions to children, asking them to describe…

This paper describes the experience of a fourth- and fifth-grade, first-year teacher's participation in the Book Club Project of the Center for the Learning and Teaching of Elementary Subjects. The Book Club included the use of high-quality children's literature, opportunities for response to literature in multiple ways, and instruction that…

Research indicating a strong correlation between reading and writing skills has been used to create effective teaching activities; this paper summarizes research findings and describes teaching activities in three classrooms. (1) As students' reading comprehension and recall have been shown to improve following instruction in summary writing, a…

Intended for use by rehabilitation professionals counseling small groups of disabled people, the Occupational Choice Strategy (OCS) was designed to be responsive to both the needs and desires of the disabled and the cost and time constraints faced by rehabilitation counselors. OCS incorporates: (1) concise occupational information easily accessed…

Controversial issues and their effect on students is the focus of this paper, which includes results of research on the influences of media and family. Discussions of controversial issues in an open classroom environment affects student attitudes by promoting: (1) less cynicism about government and politicians; (2) a belief that citizens have…

One promising alternative to the traditional workshop format of inservice teacher education is to bring researchers and teachers more closely together, in classrooms, where the two groups can work as a team addressing those needs the teachers have defined. A teacher and a researcher collaborated in a 3-month effort to improve the way the teacher…

This paper describes the use of the Nominal Group Technique as a tool to assist community leaders in 23 Georgia counties, most of them rural, in identifying and prioritizing community issues. The counties and individuals involved were participants in the Georgia County Perspective, a 12-week leadership program designed to give local leaders skills…

The essence of a healthy democracy is open dialogue about issues of public concern. An integral part of the training of young citizens, therefore, includes the discussion of controversial social, political, and economic policies. The use of classroom discussions as a pedagogical technique to examine controversial issues is explored by considering:…

The processes entailed in facilitating or leading workshops or seminars for researching the curriculum in Technical and Further Education (TAFE) were examined by using a modified Delphi process, which was followed by a 2-day workshop. Participants in the study were all experienced curriculum development specialists with knowledge of one or more of…

In order to provide students training to teach handicapped learners with practice in acquiring and utilizing information about individual pupils in classroom situations, a guided design approach was implemented in a course on decision making that covered the major assessment techniques. A modified guided design book was written for the course…

Developed at Tarrant County Junior College (TCJC) Northeast Campus (Texas), this paper presents and discusses materials and activities for teaching foreign language conversation classes. Introductory comments describe TCJC's Department of Foreign Languages, new curricular emphases on the development of oral skills, the nature of the college's…

A sizeable and convincing body of research continues to indicate that children gain competence and confidence in using the English language when it is situated within a context that is at once purposive and pleasurable. Both empirical and anecdotal evidence suggest that exposure to a wide variety of good children's literature provides an effective…

One of the most difficult tasks business and professional communication teachers face is teaching students to appreciate cultural differences and their effects on business communication, both domestically and internationally. Students from a homogeneous background may dismiss or disparage cultural differences. Some classroom exercises can help…

A study was conducted to determine the patterns of questioning behaviors exhibited by four preservice and four inservice teachers in an inner-city elementary school. Specifically, the study examined the types of questions teachers asked, the types of responses given by students, the wait-time between questions that teachers provided for high- and…