A small, but perhaps not so unusual, miracle is happening in one of the poorest elementary schools in Charleston County, South Carolina. Two kindergarten teachers at Mary Ford Elementary School, with the help of the school's art teacher and a kindergarten specialist, have effectively combined a focus on art with daily read-alouds and the use of…

Are children learning when they are "messing about" in sand or water? Is it science? In a workshop presented at the ASE Annual Meeting in Birmingham (January 2003), "Messy science: planning for learning in the foundation stage," delegates examined the nature of an early years curriculum through first-hand experience of a…

Rapidly changing engineering designs and business scenarios make it essential for engineers and technical personnel to be trained to be effective team players and project managers. This paper reports the experiences gained in developing and implementing a workshop to train engineers at a steel manufacturing plant. The objective of the workshop was…

This paper discusses the impact that teaching and research on African theatre in the Workshop Theatre of the University of Leeds' School of English may have had in Africa and elsewhere. After surveying the productivity and influence of the Workshop Theatre to the present, the authors ask if they have contributed meaningfully to the development,…

We present an innovative way to manage online learning by administering experiential learning activities during a semester-long, web-based course that is designed with the Project Oriented Learning methodology. A consulting-style guiding thread for in-class and remote workshops is implemented using a professionally relevant project contract that…

InterMath participants spend time in workshops exploring technology-rich mathematical investigations and completing write-ups. These write-ups include a written explanation of their problem solving process, screen captures of files that they generated while completing the investigation and links to these files. This paper examines the use of…

Purpose: To evaluate the long-term impact of three types of creativity training workshops conducted within an organization and contrast the influence of training compared with work environment factors in influencing employee innovation. Design/methodology/approach: A follow-up questionnaire was returned by 71 employees who had taken part in the…

The use of online technology within universities is increasing. However, this expansion is not accompanied by an associated increase in investment in lecturers' pedagogical knowledge to assist them in the transition. The major challenge now is to encourage the use of pedagogically sound technologies. At present, lecturers often lack the tools to…

In 2001, North Carolina Dance Theatre, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School system joined forces to create a multidimensional, professional development program for dance professionals (teachers and artists) in the public schools called, The Dance Educator Enrichment Program (DEEP). DEEP was designed…

Recent policy developments are requiring local education authorities (LEAs) in Wales to undertake a more significant role in improving the Welsh education service. This article reports some of the outcomes of a Welsh Assembly government-funded initiative that addressed aspects of the development of the capacity of LEAs in Wales to fulfil this…

The computer science high-school teaching community of practice possesses a rich collection of distributed practical knowledge consisting of individual teachers' expertise regarding pedagogy. However, without a proper means of communication and rules of discourse, the individual pieces of knowledge might not be transferred properly within the…

The purpose of this brief paper is to provide insight into the kinds of work being done by an education research group in a US physics department. As will be evident, instructional technology raises many interesting questions and lends itself to a wide variety of studies. References and contacts are provided for readers wanting more detailed…

In spring 1994, the author was hired to be the assistant principal at McLoughlin Middle School in Medford, Oregon. Disciplinary referrals in the 804-student school were on the rise. Teachers were frustrated, students were anxious, and parents were concerned. Casting about for a solution, she heard about a two-day workshop on schoolwide discipline…

In the past 10 years the United States has seen a dramatic increase in the number of children who live without their parents in a household headed by a relative. More than 2.5 million grandparents now raise grandchildren without a biological parent present in the home. Grandparents who assume responsibility for their grandchildren are unsung…

We conduct research workshops twice each semester in our cell biology lecture course. Instead of solely analyzing data obtained by others, students form groups to design research questions and experimental protocols on a given topic. The main focus is the process of scientific thinking, not simply obtaining a correct product. (Contains 3 tables…