Intended to be used by teachers of grades 5 and up, this unit deals with Texas. The unit is built around the seven standards of the new Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), an outcome-based social studies curriculum guide for teaching Texas history. The guide includes the following standards: citizenship, economics, geography, history,…

Issues in making small-group instruction effective are addressed in this theme issue, which focuses on an approach called Complex Instruction (CI). Developed by Elizabeth Cohen at Stanford University (California), the approach is designed for middle school students in heterogeneous classes. The program is based on four goals to help teachers…

This book provides educators with the background and procedures needed to conduct group investigation, a method for classroom instruction in which students work collaboratively in small groups to examine, experience, and understand their topic of study. Significantly different from traditional instruction, group investigation is designed to appeal…

This digest deals with within-class reading ability grouping. The digest discusses limitations of grouping; teacher attitudes; student recollections of ability grouping experiences; and grouping for specific purposes (focusing on cooperative learning and its benefits). The digest suggests that good teachers who provide supportive environments for…

At Moravian College, the Communication course is an interdisciplinary introduction to the writing process, designed to help freshmen develop strategies for solving problems at each stage of writing. The course is unique in that it is not meant to be taught exclusively by members of the English department and is taught in close alliance with…

A practicum was designed to intervene and assist borderline elementary school RSP (Resource Specialist Program) students in special education classes and/or through extra assistance within the regular classroom. Borderline RSP students who had been referred to the Student Study Team (SST) for below-grade-level scores and classroom functioning in…

Lectures have a place in educational history and even a place in today's classroom, but students must be exposed to more than one style of teaching. After 20 minutes of listening to a lecture, most students reach a saturation point. To realize their maximum potential, students must do more than just listen in the classroom. They must engage in…

A cooperative work group experiential format is proposed for an introductory college computer course, which views the computer as one of several components of a business information system. The system is applied to a five-step problem solving model, consisting of problem analysis, problem understanding, making decisions, designing the solution,…

This book contains 12 graphic organizers to use with a technique called the "triple-agenda lesson," a single lesson or unit that integrates the graphic organizers as a tool for promoting thoughtful study of course content in a cooperative learning structure. The goal of this technique is to empower each learner to become self-directed…

The use of peers has long been beneficial to students: especially useful are cross-age projects, where students in the elementary and secondary grades engage in a common unit featuring projects separate to each grade and whole group activities. Cross-age projects are workable with careful planning in advance among teacher and administrators.…

The inability of students to become involved with writing assignments in two high-school sophomore honors classes was addressed at a writer's workshop by the implementation of collaborative learning, peer evaluation, conferencing, and broadened literature selection. Students responded to pre-workshop and post-workshop surveys to assess individual…

Outcomes of the Experiential Program for Preparing School Principals (EPPSP) at Butler University in Indiana, an alternative process for training preservice school administrators, are presented in this report. The study examines the differences in perceptions of program preparation experience, instructional preferences, and overall satisfaction…

This is an exploratory, descriptive study of experienced elementary, middle, and secondary school teachers who participated in a 9-month cooperative learning training project which was designed to encourage reflection upon their beliefs and assumptions about their pedagogy. Fifteen teachers were interviewed to understand how teachers modify…

This study examined the effect of microcomputer use on classroom social organization and curriculum. To determine whether teachers who have a microcomputer available for instruction use time and space differently and make modifications in what they teach and how they teach, observations of four elementary school teachers (grades two through six)…

This manual on developing teamwork at the computer provides cooperative learning activities for grades K-10 which promote the development of academic, computer, and social skills. The manual is divided into three sections: (1) "Getting To Know Each Other"; (2) "Group Cohesion"; and (3) "Group Problem Solving." The first group includes 10…