As the traditional cardiovascular control laboratory has disappeared from the first-year medical school curriculum, we have recognized the need to develop another "hands-on" experience as a vehicle for wide-ranging discussions of cardiovascular control mechanisms. Using an echocardiograph, an automatic blood pressure cuff, and a reclining bicycle,…

The greatest benefit of teacher preparation programs is field-related training where pre-service teachers contextualize the learned knowledge and theories with tasks and students during training. This preliminary study is based on the collaboration between a teacher training program and an elementary school to investigate the effect that exposure…

Action learning (AL) has been called the "engine of the learning organisation". It has been demonstrated that it can help individuals adapt to, and be more effective in, the fast-changing world. This article reports on a one-day conference held at Henley Business School. The conference was jointly organised by Henley Business School and…

The use of electronic audience response systems (ARS) in undergraduate science instruction is increasing. In this article, we argue for combining such a teaching approach with a more active use of student small-group discussions, demonstrating with examples from a Norwegian physics course how "talking physics" is central to the…

The purpose of this paper is to introduce and explain a cooperative learning technique, Academic Controversy, also known as Cooperative Controversy, Structured Controversy and Structured Academic Controversy. This technique has potential for use in intercultural education and has support in both research and theory. Briefly, the technique involves…

At Campus Technology 2010 this past July in Boston, Josh Baron, director of academic technology and e-learning at Marist College (New York) and chair of the Sakai Foundation's board of directors, led a panel discussion on the future of open source and open content in higher education with Brad Felix, chief learning officer of open textbook…

Wikis are open-source sites, meaning that users may add, remove, or edit most content quickly. Because they are a public venue, students became more engaged and invested in what they wrote, wrote more frequently, edited their work more carefully, collaborated, and became accustomed to frequent peer and adult feedback. Writing practice and in-depth…

In this article, the author describes the use of active and collaborative learning strategies in an undergraduate sociological theory course. A semester-long ethnographic project is the foundation for the course; both individual and group participation contribute to the learning process. Assessment findings indicate that students are able, through…

This brief report describes a cooperative classroom art therapy intervention in a public elementary school that provided conflict resolution education, social learning, and group cohesion among sixth-grade students. The organizing framework of a "circle justice" group explored the roles of fictional characters in conflict, including…

The Australian Disability Discrimination Act (1992) has challenged higher education to meet the increasing needs of students with different abilities. This may be more so in programmes that have practice components where students must demonstrate competency, regardless of their situation. This qualitative exploratory study undertaken at the…

Since 1948, various UN conventions have recognised basic education as a human right. Yet this right continues to be denied to many child labourers across the world. This articles draws on the results of a study examining how children in domestic labour in Kenya access and participate in education. Three issues were explored: (1) the correlates of…

Gangs have a long history in Cape Town and children tend to begin involvement around age 12. Children's views on causes of children's involvement in gangs and appropriate interventions, were sought for inclusion in policy recommendations. Thirty focus group discussions were held with in- and out-of-school youth in different communities.…

This study aimed to catalog the nature of written message exchanges on a network computer bulletin board, HSJOURN, which caters mainly to high school journalism teachers and publications advisers. The study analyzed the content of messages between December 1993 and January 1995 and cataloged them in the following categories: announcements;…

The Project for Enhancing Effective Learning (PEEL) is a well-established Australian example of teacher collaborative action research. The aim of the project, which began in a secondary school in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia) and later spread to other countries, is to improve the quality of students' classroom learning through practice in…

This guide was developed to assist teachers and media staff in Winnipeg, Manitoba to work together to plan programs that help students develop independent, resource-based learning skills. The first section of the guide describes how library research projects can be used to teach independent learning skills. The guide discusses opportunities for…