Students in the intermediate grades love to talk--but not necessarily about making sense of what they are learning. How do teachers design classrooms that cultivate productive discourse? How do they get out of the way and teach children to learn? First, let's give them something to talk about. Second, teachers need to teach them how to engage in…

Cardiovascular fitness is an important aspect of overall fitness, health, and wellness, and running can be an excellent lifetime physical activity. One of the most simple and effective means of exercise, running raises heart rate in a short amount of time and can be done with little to no cost for equipment. There are many benefits to running,…

The Cooperative Learning Project Staff at Cleveland State University studied implementation effects of training and support teams on cooperative learning at nine middle schools. Findings showed that administrators should be trained with teachers and must shape an appropriate environment, recognize the importance of support teams, provide necessary…

Outlines the essential conditions of cooperative learning. Describes six cooperative learning structures modeled in a reading methods class that can be used to create literacy activities appropriate in fourth through sixth grade. (SR)

Describes a cooperative learning activity in a fifth-grade class in which students researched, wrote, and sponsored classroom resolutions honoring African Americans during Black History Month. Discusses how literacy has the power to connect students with their heritage or with any heritage they choose to connect with. (SR)

Describes a statistics project that allowed middle school students to integrate their math, scientific inquiry, and writing skills. Students worked in groups of two to six, picked topics of personal interest, collected data, drew conclusions, and entered a national statistics competition. The course format is outlined. (CR)

Study findings indicate that ongoing communication and collaboration among teachers play a critical role in promoting successful technology integration and that administrators need to establish ways to facilitate collaborative effort. (six references) (MLF)

Discusses collaborative explorations of collage, drama, and poetry with visiting artists, teachers, and students. Describes a project in which the picture book, "I Live in Music," was shared with students in Jean Dickinson's class as an extension of a study of the Harlem Renaissance. Presents a script that reflects the authors' story of…

A recent action research experiment comparing individualistic and cooperative learning results in two seventh grade classrooms found that retention scores slightly favored the cooperative learning method. Questions arose concerning grade-sharing, relative difficulty of subject matter and multiple-choice questions, and student attitudes about the…

Describes the Legends Project in Indiana in which a class collaboratively researches, writes, and illustrates a local legend and sends it via computers and modems to other classes across the state. (SR)

Camp Armstrong is a summer program which provides rising sixth grade students with a thorough orientation to their new middle school. Activities develop students' familiarity with the school's physical layout and provide hands-on cooperative learning in academic and recreational subjects. A workshop for parents of rising middle school students is…

The Students Teaching Students cooperative learning method for gifted middle school students has four components: research, team work, presentation, and evaluation. During the presentation phase, students are required to incorporate three basic learning styles (auditory, visual, and kinesthetic) and be sensitive to their audience's response.…

Examines writing conferences (between teacher and student, and between two students) in one fourth-grade classroom to see how the students engaged in sophisticated talk about writing, as they consistently assumed the roles of critical but curious readers capable of telling their peers when they were confused about a piece of writing or how they…

Describes a school library media project for teaching poetry in which fifth-grade students write and illustrate a poem and produce a poster using the PosterPrinter machine. Suggestions for additional activities are included. (EAM)

At a Virginia middle school, the Collaborative Teaching Project was established to increase overall student achievement and attitude levels, while providing teachers skilled at delivering instructional programs to children with a wide variety of instructional and personal needs. Program objectives were built around student outcomes, staff…