One key to effective conceptual change teaching is to discover each student's conceptions about the conditions before instruction. The teacher then provides experiences that create dissatisfaction with existing ideas and models a new conception that is intelligible, plausible, and fruitful. The purpose of the Acorn Project of the Chicago office of…

This book can help those who wish to get ahead in the writing field to chart a course for success. The book outlines job prospects, including new ones relating to computer technology and the "information superhighway," along with completely updated sections on salary and opportunities for advancement. Information is provided about more…

Theories of social interaction and lifelong learning have been advanced by K. Lewin, J. Moreno, T. Sarbin, J. W. Thibaut and H. H. Kelley, R. S. Perinbanayagam, and B. Dervin. From this research lifelong learning can be seen as an affective and cognitive activity that occurs in the life-space of the actor in response to positive or negative field…

This bulletin describes the use of new qualifications, the General National Vocational Qualifications (GNVQ), which have been developed in Great Britain to qualify students for admittance to higher education through the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS). The first part of the bulletin discusses the suitability of GNVQs as a route…

This activity packet provides educators with a series of hands-on classroom and outdoor education activities for grades 9-12 that focus on geology using the Pilot Mountain State Park. The packet was designed to meet established curriculum objectives of the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction's Standard Course of Study. Three types of…

Many educators in facilitative roles have approached the subject of visual disabilities by constructing activities designed to simulate blindness, using a blindfold or similar device. Participants are subsequently encouraged to perform rudimentary tasks such as eating a meal or moving about with a sighted companion as a guide. Frequently,…

Outdoor-based experiential training (OBET) programs are being used increasingly by U.S. business firms, but intense controversy surrounds their use and there is little empirical evidence concerning their validity. Changes in team building (group) and individual behaviors were assessed among 43 OBET participants who were managers or professional…

For education to make a lasting difference in people's lives, it must touch all dimensions of being human in ways that are integrated or holistic. Content and instructional methods, such as those of Kurt Hahn and Charity James, that are based on images of the intact human being see things whole from the beginning. But our school experience and the…

This bibliography lists 275 articles and monographs, mostly published in the 1980s, that address the use of active learning teaching methods at the postsecondary education level. Items are selected to produce a large illustrative sampling of published materials that can introduce the literature of active learning to faculty. Articles typically…

Adventure-based programs may be designed in a way that not only provides an intervention aimed at therapy or development, but also teaches participants to become their own agents of change. McWhirter's model proposes that empowerment is broader than notions of personal autonomy and efficacy, reaching outside the individual. The model specifies…

This paper describes an intervention in two Algebra II classes in which the graphing calculator was incorporated into the curriculum as often as possible. The targeted population consisted of high school students in a growing middle to upper class community located in a suburb of a large city. The problem of a lack of understanding of the…

The Process Model of Experiential Learning, expanded from Dean (1993), is based on stages adapted from Pfeiffer and Jones (1983) and assumes a group of learners working together under the guidance of a group leader or facilitator. The model consists of seven stages, each composed of four different functions: leader's role regarding the content of…

Most typical high school programs are not meeting the needs of gifted and talented students. Programs for the gifted are often neither interdisciplinary nor differentiated as encouraged by Texas state guidelines. Gifted students can gain much from well-designed extracurricular activities. Grade weighting schemes in which gifted courses are…

This article describes and analyzes the field of experience-based training and development (EBTD) in an attempt to determine its scope, goals, activities, participants, providers, and philosophical bases. EBTD is a process that uses hands-on challenge or adventure, usually in the outdoors, combined with review and feedback, to improve work place…

This digest contrasts the traditional view of learning characteristic of classroom instruction with the emerging "constructivist" view that emphasizes the understanding of how and why students learn. The latter takes learning as a knowledge construction process that closely relates to prior knowledge and the learning context. It lends…