The role of motivation and collaboration in STEM learning and performance is paramount. A learning community represents an educational approach that can engage students in learning in a motivated, thoughtful, active, and collaborative way. The focus of this article is on the nature of students' interest, attitudes, learning experiences and…

Primary sources in religion and history enable first year university students to connect "content-based" linked courses in the core curriculum. Fifty-four first year university students in three separate pairs of courses worked in teams to present oral critical reports on texts related to the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the…

Education is now a global product with institutions worldwide competing for students and finding ever more creative ways to satisfy student needs and preferences. With the continuing rise in the preference for flexible distance learning, educational institutions are finding that when students and faculty have significantly different cultural…

During the past year the Center for Research on Developmental Education and Urban Literacy (CRDEUL) has moved from the former General College (GC), which after 74 years of service to a diverse student body closed its doors on June 30, 2006, to the University of Minnesota's new College of Education and Human Development (CEHD). The new mission…

Concerns about noncompletion and the quality of the 1st-year student experience have been linked to recent changes in higher education such as modularisation, increased class sizes, greater diversity in the student intake and reduced resources. Improving formative assessment and feedback processes is seen as one way of addressing academic failure,…

This study examined curriculum change involving teacher development based on the intellectual development of teachers, parents, and children by means of the theory of schema development. The paper describes constructivist pedagogy and schema and their importance for young children's learning, then reports on a qualitative study of over 300…

The purpose of "Teach for America," a program modeled after the Peace Corps, was to recruit a cadre of bright college graduates to become uncertified teachers for two years in some of America's toughest schools. This book tracks the successes and failures of the program in its first year and presents the stories of seven idealistic corps…

In most elementary schools in the United States, students get their first systematic introduction to history as a discipline and to chronological treatment of U.S. history as subject matter in fifth-grade U.S. history courses. To develop information about the knowledge and misconceptions concerning U.S. history that fifth-grade teachers can expect…

This book explores how learning is the lifetime quest to understand personal identity, purpose, and meaning while conforming and adapting to the perceived and real confines of a paradoxical society. It examines the complex social experience of learning, revealing how culture, gender, race, and other societal factors shape and mold an individual's…

This study looks at the higher education learning needs of population subgroups by reviewing research concerning the classroom experiences of minority group students and women. The importance of addressing these questions is raised by the current and expected growth in ethnic minorities in the United States. Findings indicate that Black students…

This study compared students' learning experiences in a set of courses in British literature and a set of courses in marketing, in which each set included a course taught in an intensive format and a semester-long format with the same instructor and content. Data collection included participant observation, videotaped class sessions,…

This study was conducted to examine the influences of prior school experience on student teachers' thinking. It includes descriptions of students' prior school experiences and an intervention in which students were asked to reflect on and re-evaluate those experiences. Beliefs about education, learning, self worth, abilities, and the development…

Designed for media specialists and educators, the four articles in this issue focus on television's effects on children. Following a brief editorial reviewing current directions of research in this area, the first article compares the American pre-school educational television program "Sesame Street" with its Australian counterpart.…

Three articles offer parents suggestions on how to make television a positive experience for their children. An editorial introduces the following themes basic to all the articles: type and amount of television viewing should be regulated by parents, parents should discuss television with their children, and parents must become aware of the…

The complex problems affecting the transition from secondary to postsecondary education are reviewed by an educator who works with black students from a small, Catholic high school. The following adjustments that students face in college are discussed: a change in the way a student is taught and learns, new levels of responsibility and…