Describes the author's experience teaching a class of remote and isolated children using Air (broadcast) Lessons and Distance Education lesson materials. (WRM)

Argues that when a classroom is structured to enable students to work cooperatively on learning tasks, the students benefit academically and socially. Observes that music traditionally has been taught in a competitive atmosphere. Examines the benefits of cooperative learning to restructure the music classroom into a more interactive and…

Presents four computer applications that can complement the work of peer helper trainers and peer helpers themselves. The applications include multimedia presentations, databases, desktop publishing, and the Internet. The article describes each application and also discusses the use of electronic mail, KeyPals, Listserv, and the World Wide Web to…

Forty-eight children (ages 5 to 13) with autism or related pervasive developmental disability were paired with normally developing peers for informal play periods. Compared to a control group, the experimental children demonstrated improved social behavior which sometimes generalized to interactions with other children and the larger school…

As the profiles of four mentally handicapped teenagers show, students with severe disabilities can benefit from being included in subject-area classes. To facilitate inclusion, teachers can allow peers to facilitate learning, prime students to be successful participants, give students valued roles, utilize existing expertise, and adapt the…

This paper describes the evaluation of an experimental program in which eight student special education teachers supervised new preservice trainees in a Direct Instruction practicum. Improvement in trainees' presentation and error correction skills and their positive evaluation of the practicum suggest the effectiveness of this peer coaching…

Describes two successful approaches (peer teaching and role playing) to teaching students about their environment. Also included are ideas for additional classroom assignments. (ZWH)

Discusses an approach to college instruction in which a faculty member designs a course, then teaches it with a student, evaluating the method in the context of other collaborative approaches that usually involve two-person faculty teams: peer coaching through classroom observation and team teaching. Experiences with this approach and the problems…

Examines the mechanism of helping behavior, specifically, the exchange of explanations about the content being learned, describing conditions that must be satisfied for help to be effective and discussing the responsibilities of the help-seeker, help-giver, and teacher. Examples come from a study of a semester- long program of peer learning in…

Examines how theory can contribute to solving problems of practice in school in ways that motivate and engage all students, describing an inner city secondary level vocational school in Ireland. The paper discusses how a theory of peer learning was used to address problems while encouraging students to collaborate on issues relevant to their…

Two studies investigated the role of peer training embedded within interventions to maximize participation for students with autism and the social benefits for all participants. Videotape probes of 34 students indicated greater generalization of skills from groups with trained peers and less from groups with untrained and stranger peers. (Contains…

Following systematic training as peer coaches, six preservice general educators increased the frequency with which they engaged in relevant coaching interactions and improved the accuracy with which they implemented an innovative instructional strategy (Peabody Peer Assisted Learning Strategy) with three children with learning disabilities (ages…

A study involving two kindergarten teachers found that reciprocal peer coaching produced an increase in use of suggestions, prompts, questions, and related talk to facilitate students' social interaction with classmates and fostered the use of spontaneous adaptations in the academic materials, skills, or social interaction of student pairs.…

To meet the challenge to reform mathematics education, effective opportunities to learn are needed to promote prospective elementary school teachers' development of the knowledge base that supports teaching, for mathematical proficiency. This article describes three professional development interventions and their influence on prospective…

Despite considerable research on the outcomes of teaching approaches at the tertiary level, there have been very few investigations of students' perspectives on the different approaches. This study, based on a series of in-depth interviews with students who completed a unit using traditional face-to-face tutorials and web-based bulletin-board…