Describes the benefits of "topic teamwork," an interdisciplinary model designed to make integrative teaching a well-structured, cooperative effort involving all teachers and students. The article presents examples of and strategies for integrating physical education with other subject areas and for assessing topic teamwork, concluding that topic…

Uses data on the oral communication of elementary school learning groups (459 Canadian students in 63 learning groups) to show how experience transcends subject-matter planning, and the paradoxical nature of planning for authentic experiences in education. Presents a framework for semiotic research into disciplinary didactics as a prototype…

Describes an activity for use in an introductory psychology course in which students collaborate and apply their neuroanatomy knowledge to three case studies. Provides a table with descriptions of and possible answers for the three case studies and discusses the students' responses. (CMK)

Analyzes how tools and interactions structure the way adult learners write in a socially interactive computer classroom. Argues that computers are not only instruments that make writing more efficient but are central to the construction of the writing itself. Contains 32 references. (JDI)

Proposes that the primary educational challenge today is to replace the traditional focus on the individual student with concerted investments in relational process. Examines the deficiencies of individualistic educational practices, scholarship supporting the communal basis of knowledge and reason, and signs of change toward cooperative and…

Applies Benson's think-pair-share and Mazur's peer instruction techniques to enhance student involvement during the respiratory component of the medical physiology class. Investigates changes in students' level of understanding and ability to synthesize and integrate material. Includes 15 references. (Author/YDS)

Describes Alabama's Brewbaker Technology Magnet High School, which was built for only $70 per square foot. Explores the relationship between its school-to-work, collaborative-learning approach and the building's design. (EV)

Describes a project to link business students at Towson University (Maryland) and Sofia University (Bulgaria) through the Internet, in which student teams developed a feasibility study concerning starting a business in Bulgaria. Reports on successes and pitfalls (including politics and lack of appropriate incentives within the Bulgarian system),…

Presents the PACE model (Projects, Activities, Cooperative learning, and Exercises) a computer-assisted approach for teaching college statistics. Highlights include hands-on activities, self-selected projects, course content, cooperative learning in a computer classroom environment, and a comparison of a traditional approach versus the PACE…

Presents an approach that provides a means for business communication faculty to design team projects that introduce students to the benefits of collaborative efforts and to emphasize the correlation between positive working relationships and quality outcomes. Finds that by the end of the project students' attitudes changed. Outlines objectives,…

Focuses on the use of in-class peer learning experiences in several typical Information Systems courses. Provides additional summaries of three semester-long learning projects in Structured Programming, Systems Design, and Database Design. (Contains 29 references.) (Author/ASK)

Presents a laboratory activity using an Ob-scertainer which can be completed by students working as individuals, in pairs, and in groups. Explains the pair approach and focuses on the hypothesis forming process and group roles. (YDS)

Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) is often based on written argumentative discourse of learners, who discuss their perspectives on a problem with the goal to acquire knowledge. Lately, CSCL research focuses on the facilitation of specific processes of argumentative knowledge construction, e.g., with computer-supported collaboration…

In this article, we examine collaborative discourse in an informal undergraduate study group in which students focus on their lecture notes. Several decades of educational research have demonstrated that collaborative groups contribute to enhanced learning, and recent work has explored how external representations--such as those that appear in…

Design plays a central role in a range of subjects at different educational levels. Students have to acquire the knowledge necessary for the execution of tasks that enable them to construct an artefact or model that can be tested by simulation and that satisfies some requirements and verifies some constraints. They achieve this by means of a…