Designer support is critical for facilitating collaboration and knowledge construction in an online learning environment. Designer support in this paper refers to the mechanisms that a designer builds in a technology-mediated environment to facilitate online learning. This paper focuses on two aspects of designer support: 1) creating a shared…

Researchers define learning in many different ways, but all agree learning causes a permanent change in human behavior. The purpose of this DETC Occasional Paper is to illustrate how the principles of learning can facilitate the design of effective instruction. The authors first describe the principles of learning (contiguity, repetition,…

Provides an overview of the discussions, activities, procedures, and issues surrounding the more than 70 listservs run by H-Net. The Internet e-mail subscription network is open and free to both scholars and the public. Includes a list of all the H-Net listservs and a representative copy of one list's operating rules. (MJP)

Participatory research is an approach that calls for a democratic interaction between the researcher and those among whom the research is conducted. While this approach has been implemented with both individuals and groups in a wide variety of settings such as geographic communities, workplace situations, adult learning groups, community issue…

I have been responsible for the teaching of a secondary teacher education unit called Educational Issues (EDN 482) for the past seven years, in the Faculty of Education in a small, regional Australian University. A brief look at the map will show how geographically isolated form the main centres of population in Australia, Northern Territory…

Maintains that controversial issues related to social studies can be addressed using a three-step process. Step one consists of expressing the issue as a dilemma. In step two the students analyze every aspect of the dilemma, engaging in discussion and argument. Step three, the class reaches a consensus. (MJP)

The Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) Project at American River College (ARC) in Sacramento, California, was developed to improve retention rates among underrepresented students in math and science classes with high dropout rates. The project involved a group of 24 paid student Learning Assistants (LA's) who successfully completed the targeted courses…

Describes an upper-level undergraduate seminar on race, ethnicity, and social inequality that included an Internet discussion list consisting of over 300 faculty, students, and administrators from around the world. Discusses organizational and pedagogical challenges involved in creating and maintaining the list. (MJP)

A fifth-grade classroom teacher and a reading specialist changed the classroom structure from teacher-centered to student-centered, using flexible grouping, students' choice of literature, student journals, and student-driven discussion groups. They found that students' motivation and interest in reading improved over time. (SM)

This article is based on qualitative empirical research into the ways in which teachers view their experiences as learners in the context of an online tutor group who are studying for the mixed-mode Master of Teaching degree at the Institute of Education, University of London. Data collected from a stratified sample of teacher participants is…

The science discourse of young children is a means by which children can pose and try to answer difficult questions about their world. This paper describes through excerpts from transcripts of audiotapes and fieldnotes of science talks, how young children talk about science, and how they use metaphors and analogies to develop theories about…

This study examines past and present public issue forums and their role in the United States political system. The first chapter describes traditional forms of the public forum such as town meetings, neighborhood societies, lyceums, university extension programs, and settlement house networks. Analyzed next are the content, organization, and…

Three Spanish-speaking mothers of middle-school children, a relative of one of the mothers, a school librarian, and the researcher met regularly to establish a collaborative, two-way dialogue which would encourage social and educational equality and that would take contributions into consideration according to the validity of reasoning rather than…

Describes a school-university collaborative project in which elementary students paired with preservice teachers to discuss children's books electronically. The project introduced preservice teachers to Web-based discussions and provided opportunities for them to become more familiar with how elementary students respond to books. Samples of…

Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, launched a collaborative partnership effort with four public school districts in an effort to refine existing teacher education methods and explore alternative methods. Student teachers were called "teacher interns," which generated an increased professional attitude from both the…