Employs three approaches in a summative evaluation of ENFI (Electronic Networks for Interaction), a local area network used to teach writing through the use of software that supports real-time communication. Suggests that the ENFI setting allows a writing teacher to more easily model the creation of a writing persona. (RS)

Research on reading comprehension and its teaching is reviewed. A theoretical basis is presented for conceptualizing the reading comprehension curriculum as a set of five strategies. Research on teaching facilitates a new view of instruction, focusing on the negotiation of meaning among students and teachers through teachers' instructional…

The learning climate set by adult educators reflects assumptions about adults as learners and the teaching-learning transaction. Creating positive environments requires attending to initial contact with learners; answering the questions Who are we? Who am I the instructor? and Why are we here?; and using icebreakers. (SK)

Considers how the history of rhetoric is taught currently and has been taught in the past. Provides data from surveys of historians in rhetoric and composition concerning their methods. Describes how the history of rhetoric is taught at the University of Arizona. Shows how rhetoric can be taught as a social praxis. (HB)

Teachers of life skills courses must beware of ethnocentrism, understand their own culture, learn about other cultures, and ensure that a multicultural perspective informs the curriculum. Cultural differences may arise in such topics as child development, family relationship, food and nutrition, family responsibilities, and community resources.…

Concludes children benefit from teacher training in integrating environmental print into the curriculum; logos selected for classroom use should come from children's immediate environment; instruction should include experiences with manuscript forms of the logos; and children who are encouraged to bring to class examples of environmental print…

Suggests that the dangers and risks in whole language are real and irremedial, and educators' only recourse is to take responsibility for its shadow side and attempt to learn the lessons that even "monstrous examples" portend. (RS)

Each adult educator holds a unique set of beliefs about teaching and the elements of instruction and behaves in a teaching/learning setting in fundamentally individual ways. The key to a congruent teaching style is having the beliefs and behaviors consistent with each other. (Author/JOW)

Discusses how a secondary school English teacher focuses not on the carefully plotted beginnings and endings of lessons but the middle moments, which surrender first and last things to concentrate on expressions of creative power. (RS)

Investigates success factors of Anglo-American teachers who work effectively with African-American children in urban schools. Presents profiles of four such teachers. Reveals five themes: general characteristics of the teachers; classroom behaviors and strategies that facilitate learning; satisfaction with teaching in urban schools;…

Discusses dimensions necessary to preschool teachers' interactions with children, noting that they do not add to teachers' workload but do require a shift in focus. Dimensions discussed include listening, social skills, playing, and touching. (HTH)

Finds that instructor verbal-immediacy behavior was positively related to: a student's willingness to talk in class (with gender not a factor for this outcome); and to a student's perceived learning. Finds that while students perceived more learning from a professor of the same gender, the effect was strongly mediated by instructor…

Arguments against teachers asserting their own views about controversial issues say that neutrality enables students to develop autonomous reflection. Others claim that a nonneutral stance is morally preferable. There are some teaching situations in which a neutral stance may not be an option. (SK)

Classroom incivilities play a critical role in faculty teaching careers and are important determinants of student learning experiences. Faculty and student perceptions of 24 faculty behaviors and 27 student classroom behaviors were surveyed. Faculty generally rated behaviors more strictly than did students. Areas of similarity and differences are…

The description of one student's experiences illustrates the need for early identification of, and programming for, gifted students. Factors influencing the reluctance of classroom teachers to identify young students as gifted are discussed, and mental models are introduced as the underlying reason for this resistance. Suggestions for change are…