Digital media is a great multidimensional communication tool because it combines images, text, sound, and animation. For students to be effective communicators in the 21st century, they need to be sophisticated in expressing ideas with multiple communication technologies, not just the written word. Digital storytelling allows students to use…

In distance education to date, the nature of teaching and learning in all academic domains has largely been understood in terms of behaviorist theories, more recently drawing on cognitive science from which principles and models for course design have been derived. This paper takes as its starting point contemporary critiques of such 'traditional'…

This paper examines two kinds of student engagement: "procedural," which concerns classroom rules and regulations; and "substantive," which involves sustained commitment to the content and issues of academic study. It describes the manifestations of these two forms of engagement, explains how they relate differently to student outcomes, and offers…

The spoken language occurring when primary school children work in groups at the computer was examined. Findings suggest that discourse accompanying highly structured software conforms well to the initiation/response/follow-up (IRF) structure, with the computer often taking the initiating role. The more open-ended the program, the more…

Compared patterns of group interaction for (n=28) fifth- and sixth-grade students during small group discussions designed to reduce misconceptions related to division. Highly interactive patterns of discourse were found to be associated with effective learning. (Contains 25 references.) (MKR/Author)

Considers how sex discrimination and sexist language have affected educational environments, particularly basic writing and English-as-a-Second-Language instruction. Provides four practical suggestions for college teachers of bilingual and/or bidialectical students to alleviate such attitudes and behaviors. (HB)

In the two high school writing communities described in this article, literacy is strategic, purposeful, and always linked to meaning. The foundation for literate practices in these communities is Freirian in nature. Teachers, in a very serious way, work to liberate language and prepare students to be in control of words; they do this by allowing…

Interactive discourse structuring is used to guide listeners through on-going speech and has been shown to have a positive effect on lecture comprehension, particularly in L2 settings. As mobility increases in the academic world, there are more opportunities for lecture events characterized not only by linguistic/cultural diversity, but also by…

Most science instructors in classes for prospective teachers emphasize the learning of basic facts and definitions in science from textbooks and lectures. Relatively little emphasis is placed on understanding science knowledge and how to use it in daily life. Most students in these classes tend to learn science, probably without understanding,…

In June 1994, the Texas Center for Educational Technology (TCET) posted a survey on several educational listservs and conference groups on the Internet requesting comments, observations, and opinions from educators having experience with telephones in classrooms. Most of the respondents agreed on the need to equip K-12 classrooms with modern…

A study was conducted to (1) examine the relation of syntactic complexity to mode of discourse in the writing of eighth and twelfth grade students; (2) determine to what extent variations observed were related to grade level, socioeconomic status, and race; and (3) determine to what extent the syntactic complexity achieved on a rewriting task…

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948) is well-remembered as a man of peace who entered into a life of renunciation to overcome India's caste, class and religious differences for the purpose of independence as much as personal liberation. Less well- known is Gandhi's critique of the education system established in India under the circumstances of…

Through a series of focus group interviews, 63 students at George Mason University (Virginia) related their academic and student life experiences. The goal of the researchers was to find a means of reporting the findings in a way that retained the integrity of the contextual data (student voices) and maximized audience impact. Three ways of…

A Future Teachers' Autobiography Club discussion group/research project invited six elementary teacher candidates to read, write about, and discuss ethnic autobiography in order to foster and investigate the potential of peer discussion in teacher learning. Using a selected list of six autobiographies, the researcher hosted monthly dinner…

Using a discourse-centered approach to ethnography, this book provides an empirically based, contemporary overview of a rapidly changing First Nations village in northern Ontario (Canada). Data were collected in the 1980s during a 2-year residence and follow-up visits in the Severn Ojibwa community of Lynx Lake, a remote subarctic village in which…