Describes a field study in a local ecosystem which allows high school students to investigate the edge effect, where a meadow and a forest meet. Students measure soil moisture content, soil temperature, air temperature, relative humidity, wind intensity, and illumination level. Teachers can help students apply their findings to understand problems…

Describes how a "tech prep" junior English class at a vocational-technical high school collaborated with a class of third graders, as the juniors wrote short stories based on topics generated by the third graders who then illustrated the stories. Discusses how both classes prepared and got started, and how all participants benefited. Offers tips…

Discussion of the design and delivery of distance education courses focuses on a course designed to teach middle and high school teachers how to use the Internet for science education. Highlights include peer collaboration; instructor feedback; student-centered learning; authentic learning; critical thinking; project based learning; student…

Provides two examples of district-wide assessments from South Brunswick (NJ) schools in which library media specialists and teachers collaborate to make complex learning visible. Describes a sixth grade assessment that addresses library media skills and integrating research skills into the curriculum; and a freshman project that requires an…

Discusses interviews with 50 sixth-grade students about their experience of using the Web to find information for a class project. The children overall demonstrated a sophistication both in their appreciation of the Web's strengths and weaknesses as an information source, and in their information retrieval strategies. In their reaction to the Web…

Examines efforts by educators in Taiwan to implement the project approach in early childhood settings. Discusses observed changes and benefits of parental involvement in their children's learning; describes the activities of one project that was implemented; and outlines the strategies used by the teachers to promote parental involvement in the…

Discusses the service projects at Hoover Elementary School in Iowa City, Iowa that link economic education, service learning, and global education. Describes one project where the students involved the community in sending educational materials and financial aid to a school in Brazil. (CMK)

Articles present information on using the student project approach and instructional themes in early childhood settings. Articles describe particular projects, teachers and students' experiences with project learning, the Reggio Emilia approach, phases of project work, using ordinary moments during the day to support children's construction of…

In recent years, a number of curriculum reform projects have championed the notion of having students do science in ways that move beyond hands-on work with authentic materials and methods, or developing a conceptual grasp of current theories. These reformers have argued that students should come to an understanding of science through doing the…

Playing computer games is an extremely popular leisure activity for children. In fact, the computer games market in the UK is now double that of the video rental market, and substantially larger than cinema box office sales, and under people under the age of 18 make up 38% of these game players. Based on the popularity and strong motivational…

Several years of experience in training lecturers for developing and tutoring project-based learning (PBL) courses have resulted in a 'practise as you preach' based and flexible training programme. This programme was successfully incorporated in the teacher training programmes of the University of Twente and other universities and polytechnics in…

This article addresses how community-university digital media literacy projects are redefining literacy, literate practices, and institutions. Using Actor-Network Theory (ANT), which emphasizes the organizing process itself, I analyze the shifting definitions of literacy within one particular university-community collaboration. My analysis…

The majority of literature regarding problem-based learning demonstrates its usefulness as a teaching technique in the natural sciences curriculum. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, the broad purpose is to illustrate the application of problem-based learning for instructing students about controversial issues in sociology. Within the…

Using asynchronous online discussions for interschool collaborative project work represents one of the innovative practices in the Singapore classroom. With anytime, anywhere access to interactions among the students and teachers, the asynchronous nature of these interactions leads to new paradigms for teaching and learning, with both unique…

When one walks into the classrooms at New Technology High School (NTHS) in Napa, California, he or she will see that students there are always at work: writing journals online, doing research on the Internet, meeting in groups to plan and make their Web sites and their digital media presentations, and evaluating their peers for collaboration and…