Discusses ways to increase enrollments in college foreign language courses and build full-service language departments, suggesting nine strategies to promote interest in foreign languages. The strategies encourage faculty to reach out to students and faculty in other departments, to the community, and to the region via public programs such as film…

Describes a team-taught, interdisciplinary college honors course on politics and literature, including the origins and theoretical underpinning of the course, issues related to the intersection of the disciplines, evolution of the teacher's role in the course, and outcomes. Concludes that despite the difficulties of interdisciplinary team…

Defines thematic teaching, also known as interdisciplinary or authentic instruction, as representing cross-disciplinary programs which integrate cognitive, affective, and psychomotor outcomes. Highlights include integrating thematic teaching into elementary school classrooms, cognitive and social learning theories, motivation, cooperative…

This article describes a learning activity, the Texas History Walk, in which third- and seventh-grade gifted students learn about life in the 1870s on the Texas frontier. The younger students interact with the actors, seventh graders role-playing characters of the 1870s. Benefits of the activity include its interdisciplinary nature, the cross-age…

Discusses the role of middle school curriculum reform, including disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and integrated perspectives, that will improve students' social, intellectual, and personal development. (JPB)

Discusses ways to improve collaborative communication between core and exploratory curriculum teachers in interdisciplinary team-taught middle schools. Considers techniques of curriculum integration, homebase/advisory alliances, extended teams, core-exploratory liaisons, rotating team connections, exploratory teams, equalized assessment,…

Focus group research methodology was used to identify professional skills regarded by educational team members (N=30) as necessary to support students who used augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) in general education classrooms. All valued five skills, including the ability to work together collaboratively and to maintain and operate…

Introduces the course Javametrics 101: Mastering the Art and Science of Good Coffee which is designed for nonmajor science students. Emphasizes the scientific method in an integrated curriculum. (Contains 15 references.) (YDS)

Demonstrates a model system that recreates seasonal processes on Mars. Lists necessary materials and explains the construction of the demonstration. Provides discussion questions. (Contains 11 references.) (YDS)

Discusses assessment in a standards-based setting, focusing on the importance of assessing subject content in social studies and the tensions teachers experience when incorporating standards and assessment. Describes a personal retrospective assignment on the civil rights movement, provides scoring guides for the assignment, and includes a student…

Draws on emerging trends in British universities to examine arguments concerning the continued specialization of comparative and international education versus its integration into other disciplines. Argues that there is an urgent need for comparativists to become active change agents in the broader transformation of their institutions into…

Discusses the use of analog drawing in an undergraduate interdisciplinary arts course. States that analog drawing uses lines as representation of portraits, problems, or emotions. Explains how analog drawing was used to depict social issues and reports on the interpretations of student drawings. (CMK)

Asserts that all children can draw, but as children get older, a feeling of inadequacy may surface. Explores different drawings done by children and addresses the benefits of drawing for children. Discusses the author's teaching manuals "Drawing is Basic" that encourage children's confidence in their drawing abilities. (CMK)

Presents an activity that used the book "The Rainbow Fish" by Marcus Pfister as a means to introducing the project in which first-grade students created a picture of a fish. Explains how the students practice following step-by-step directions by the teacher. (CMK)

Discusses musical activities that foster early literacy development according to six different early literacy instructional goals: (1) children's learning of concepts of print; (2) a sense of story and sequence; (3) phonemic awareness and phonics; (4) background knowledge and vocabulary; (5) basic spelling patterns; and (6) early writing…