Presents an activity for students to investigate equal parts and area and the connection between area and fractions. Highlights the importance of such a lesson in which children explore rich mathematical ideas, share their thinking and their work with one another, and make connections to other mathematical ideas. (ASK)

Outlines current ideas about the use of focus groups in library and information science and considers advantages and disadvantages of different types of focus group discussions. Discusses reasons for choosing this research method. (AEF)

The author tells how he began storytelling to teen audiences, how fairy tales were originally geared toward adult audiences, and highlights some of his favorites. Violent, gory, and humorous stories appeal to teens but invoke discussion and promote reading. Provides a list of storytelling hints and finding, learning, and practicing the story. (LAM)

Explores connections to be made between literature and life by using "Cinderella" as an occasion for classroom drama and personal discussion. Explains how the instructor assumes the role of a reporter as students tell their own Cinderella stories. (TB)

Examines online discussions using lexical scoring techniques. Suggests that online conversations become more sophisticated as learners interact with each other over the duration of a course, that collaboration among learners fosters the social construction of knowledge and that evidence of such knowledge-building activities is embodied in the tone…

Advocates the use of Socratic dialogue as a paradigm of classroom organization that supports the primary goals of Montessori secondary education. Describes similarities between the structure of the Socratic seminar and first- and second-period Montessori lessons. Argues that Socratic practice provides a safe, structured environment in which…

Presents a guide, derived from the Situational Leadership model, which describes the process that should be used in facilitating a group discussion. The process includes preparation, assessment, diagnosis, prescription, development, reinforcement, and follow-up. Three figures depict the Situational Leadership model, the facilitation process, and…

Describes the nature of online chats in terms of how graduate students structured their conversations in online group discussions, and how they participated and conversed in and across concurrent conversations. Characteristics of the computer medium contributed to the conversational structures and the kinds of structures affected interactivity and…

An Internet user talks about her experiences as a result of a graduate-level class, "Telecommunications in the Classroom," at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Discussion focuses on the Internet community and the various kinds of talk on the Internet, including bulletin boards, real time, creative, political, expert, international,…

Examined group discussions among English as a Second Language college students and teachers regarding plagiarism. Through negotiation with more experienced peers and instructors, students negotiated and co-constructed notions of plagiarism by working in their zones of proximal development. Concludes that such socially situated discourse is…

This study examined the use of online argumentation scaffolds to engage and support coherent argumentation. Participants were students in an undergraduate economics course. Results showed that providing a constraint-based argumentation scaffold during group problem-solving activities increased the generation of coherent arguments and resulted in…

Explores the benefits of a hermeneutic orientation to technical writing instruction. Examines the historical and philosophical sources that have influenced technical writing pedagogy, and describes the usefulness of hermeneutic inquiry and its potential for technical writing teachers. (SG)

In a method called "cooperative controversy," students team up to study controversial subjects, then synthesize their findings. In a philosophy course, small-groups work on a specific philosophical problem. Group work was as effective as traditional lecture in three cases and more effective in two cases. (MLW)

Sees introduction of specific structures and exercises in psychotherapy group as directly controlling course of events and affecting members' perceptions of the group and leader. Asserts that exercises must highlight, rather than bypass, existing group processes. Presents five-step model for preparing, working with, processing, generalizing, and…

The article presents a metacognitive intervention for teaching mainstreamed learning-disabled students four learning strategies for thinking before, during, and after class discussions. Instructional and assessment procedures used for teaching the strategies are described. (Author/DB)