The authors, experienced with educable and trainable mentally handicapped fifth and sixth graders, describe a procedure for training handicapped students to tutor their nonhandicapped peers (reverse role tutoring) to enhance handicapped students' abilities in the areas of academic achievement, personal/social adjustment, and decision making/moral…

Presents samples of talk in peer writing conferences in an urban fourth grade class. Points out that talk in peer writing conferences fosters an exchange of ideas between students; is crucial for helping students revise first drafts; leads to greater sense of community in the classroom; and creates a classroom environment in which students'…

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…

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…

The Study Buddies program is a partnership between an upper elementary classroom and a primary classroom. The program could be modified for any grade level as long as all the class members are willing to work with a different grade level class on a regular basis throughout the school year. Participating students and teachers plan social…

A workshop on interactive video was designed for fourth and fifth grade students, with the goals of familiarizing students with laser disc technology, developing a cadre of trained students to train other students and staff, and challenging able learners to utilize higher level thinking skills while conducting a research project. (JDD)

This survey explores community service programs involving early adolescents. School-based programs are emphasized. The following programs were selected as models of appropriate service learning and are described in detail: (1) Friendly PEERsuasion, a peer tutoring program in Arlington (Texas); (2) The Peer Counseling Program in Oakland…

Asserts that successful teaching and learning can be summarized in one word: collaboration. Discusses cooperative learning and three types of collaboration: (1) collaboration among teachers; (2) collaboration between student and teacher; and (3) collaboration among students. (CFR)

"Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition" is a program that successfully teaches reading, writing, and language arts in heterogeneous intermediate classes containing mainstreamed special education and remedial reading students, by combining mixed-ability cooperative learning teams and same-ability reading groups. (Author/JDD)

This paper examines the process of constructing a student-centered World Wide Web site and provides recommendations for improving this process. In the project, preservice teachers instructed the fifth grade students about how to design and develop a Web site on weather. The topics of the sessions included Internet ethics, using the Web,…

Recent research shows that at-risk young people involved in well-planned and supervised peer-tutoring situations improve their grade point averages, literacy and study skills, reading comprehension, ability to identify long-range goals, and self-confidence. This article describes a high school peer-tutoring program applicable to middle school…

A pilot program initially designed for a 12-year-old girl with mild to moderate intellectual disabilities in higher order computer tasks was developed for a larger group of students with similar disabilities enrolled in fifth and sixth grades (ages 9-12) at three different schools. An examination of the original pilot study was undertaken to…

In this book, an experienced elementary school teacher recounts how she and three other teachers of grades 4, 5, and 6 decided to relax the compartmentalization of learning into subject areas and shuffle subject matter into new patterns to offer students a voice in their education. The book describes how the teachers created a multiage…

This booklet is intended to stimulate new interest in the need of young adolescents to take on meaningful roles and to help planners and practitioneers to translate that interest into youth participation programs. There are three major sections. Section I examines the special needs and characteristics of youth in the 10 to 14 age group. Discussed…