This staff development kit is the second in a series designed that provides school-based staff development activities. The first kit contains materials, activities, and suggestions to help faculty with early efforts to implement the middle school concept. This kit provides various tools and techniques to improve the quality of teachers'…

Literature Circles encourage critical thinking, inspire rich discussion-based activities, and promote effective communication. This book provides the tools and techniques teachers need to set up literature circles in their classrooms. The book's authors, two inner city elementary teachers, show how to teach and use roles effectively and maintain…

This paper addresses the question of how to qualify a knowledge building dialogue in Web-based collaborative learning. It investigates the idea of qualifying the dialogue through grading requirements and through providing students with meta-awareness around their dialogue. The paper investigates and analyzes the changes in quality of student…

Carrying out argumentative discussion online has become rather common in higher education. This task is traditionally supported by asynchronous collaboration tools, but this paper suggests that also synchronous supports could be useful. This paper focuses on scaffolding the knowledge construction: the work of two student moderators jointly…

This study examined the relationship between the quality of intra-group online collaboration among groups of undergraduate learners on the quality of products produced. The quality of online collaboration was assessed by the instructor and Teaching Assistant with the computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) process assessment tool. The…

This paper describes the experiences of three university instructors facilitating computer-mediated communication among three teacher training courses at Indiana University, Bloomington and Northwest campuses, and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. The project utilized AltaVista Forum (now SiteScape Forum), a World Wide…

This paper reports findings in a study of an e-mail discussion activity in an undergraduate methods course. Students were asked to contribute an e-mail message to the class discussion at least once every two weeks; they could write on any topic suggested by their field experiences or related class discussions and readings. Critical interpretative…

The purpose of this exploratory experimental study was to examine how online cognitive facilitation that promotes cognitive presence, while keeping facilitator's social presence constant, affects student learning and satisfaction in an online community of inquiry. In this context, we explored the following questions: (1) Does online high cognitive…

The need to relate classroom instruction to a child's understanding of himself and his relationship with other people has stimulated a teaching project which offers continuity and meaning to factual learning. (JB)

The study of consumer education at J. R. Rightsell Elementary School in Little Rock, Arkansas, was geared to meet the economic levels of poverty-level families and some better-than-average families in a predominantly black, low income area. (Author/NL)

A five-year experience with process-oriented discussion groups at annual four-day, off-campus retreats attended by University of Maryland School of Medicine students, faculty, and "significant others" is reported. Questionnaires sent to participants after the retreats indicated significant satisfaction with them. (Author/MLW)

Discusses the role of the tutorial as a teaching method suitable for developing a student's verbal skills of discussion, questioning, and group interaction, and describes a study which measured active student participation in tutorials. Strategies by which tutors can increase this participation are suggested. (EAO)

Career orientation rap sessions provide the opportunity for severely physically handicapped adolescents to talk to people with similar interests and experiences. The handicapped adult discussion leader shares personal experiences to encourage the adolescents to find what works for them. (SEW)

A case study of the type of educational experience provided in a seminar for student teachers is discussed. Inspired by a humanistic philosophy, the seminar did, at times, play a liberalizing and creative role. Most discussions, however, focused on utilitarian problems encountered in the students' teaching. (PP)