"Informal Forum," grounded in constructivism has been developed to foster active learning and deep understanding. Learning is an interdependent process, and is most effective when students construct their own meaning of knowledge. If one believes in the value of constructivist learning, it is important to teach how we preach in higher education.…

Teachers at two urban elementary schools with a history of low student achievement in reading met in weekly study groups to engage in structured dialogue about teaching practice. These groups were established through the support of the Urban Literacy Institute, a joint project of Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, and the Dayton, Ohio,…

In this article, the author describes how he introduced a history project that blended a book discussion activity and the use of blogs to his eighth-grade class. Over four weeks, his class participated in a lively collective journal centered on an assigned piece of reading: "Guerrilla Season" by Pat Hughes. The historical novel, set…

The Employability Support Network of Disabled Youth is a 3-year model program housed at the Child Development and Rehabilitation Center of the Oregon Health Sciences University (Portland). The network is designed to set up support groups featuring as a role model a person with a disability. Specifically, the model sets up a project which (1)…

The Walking Advisement program at Crittenden Middle School in Armonk, New York was started during the 1984-1985 school year. It was based on the work of Alfred Arth, a middle school specialist at the University of Wyoming. Essentially, the program attempts to expand the guidance function of the school by bringing faculty and students together to…

The Parent Group Development Program was established to provide information and support for parents with developmental disabilities. Parent group activities focused on offering information about child development (through a guessing game in which behavior was matched to one of four age groups) and meal planning and budgeting (with a task that…

This article describes Kid-to-Kid, a group discussion program that gives students a strong voice and lets them connect with their peers in an environment where it is safe to be honest, where feelings and thoughts can be expressed without fear of judgment, and where the teacher talks less than the students. Guidelines for starting such a program…

In "Rhetoric, Discovery and Change" (1970), R. Young, A. Becker, and K. Pike took Carl Rogers' empathetic approach out of the context of one-on-one therapy and put it into the writing classroom. They proposed the now standard formulaic structure of argumentation which emphasizes a strong thesis up front, a detailed account of the…

The focus of this paper is the combination of oral and written response and technology, the components that form electronic feedback, and their possible benefits to business. The paper proposes that Web writing applications can provide numerous benefits to businesses and increase the communication and management of that communication. With the…

Describes a small group discussion-oriented anxiety management training course. Presents a training model consisting of a variety of cognitive and relaxation-oriented anxiety management techniques. (MCF)

Parent study groups have the potential to reach a large segment of the parent population. These self-help groups do not require a substantial number of professionals to provide help for parents. Parents quickly accept study groups because they can readily see the results of their efforts with their children. (Author)

Describes videotaped simulations of classroom incidents and interviews intended to elicit faculty discussion about teaching. The use of video as a discussion device is addressed and an analysis of vignette discussions is given. (RAO)

Presents a part of a larger study attempting to retrieve the versions of the child implicit in the everyday life of a literature classroom. Focuses on a children's novel, "Magpie Island" (Thiele, 1974), and the classroom talk about that novel. Findings reveal that the version of the child implicit in the novel and that enacted in the classroom…

Endeavors to reassert the validity of a many-faceted agenda to which qualitative analysis of classroom talk remains central and to present a review of advances made in the gathering and interpretation of talk-evidence so that possible lines of further development can be indicated. (44 references) (Author/CK)

This article explores the dynamics of a creative problem solving meeting which frequently reaches impasse. Excerpts from the meeting transcript are presented to determine where and why the group gets off track in developing a method to evaluate sales training. Suggestions are offered for steering the group away from win/lose arguments and into…