Graduate students in a telecommunications in education class participated in a collaborative project in which they implemented and practiced the curricular models that they studied during the course. The students used distance education to support learning about the field of distance education. They used the World Wide Web and other media for…

CaseNET is a Web-based learning environment where teachers utilize the latest technologies to form communities of professionals who hone their decision making skills via "slice-of-life" cases. Students involved with CaseNET physically meet during regularly scheduled times at a designated site. Each site is staffed with an instructor, or team of…

Beginning teachers' learning is complex and personal: they learn about themselves as teachers; they fight with newly revealed selves endeavoring to change; and they engage in a struggle that is both emotional and intellectual. This report presents narratives, based on both journals and taped conversations, of the learning experiences of six novice…

Emphasizes that literacy involves more than simply knowing how to read and write. Explains how a teacher expanded reading and writing activities to all areas of the curriculum to demonstrate to first grade students that writing can be used as a tool to make sense of the world around them. (SKC)

The shift from traditional classroom education to computer-mediated distance learning poses enormous challenges to instructors and learners. The concept of the classroom where students meet to interact with other learners and the instructor no longer exists. Learners lack a natural social outlet to engage with other learners thus leading to…

This paper describes the LATTICE (Linking All Types of Teachers to International Cross-Cultural Education) project, which has been bringing together Michigan public school teachers, international students, and internationally oriented faculty from Michigan State University for several years. Through LATTICE, participants can learn about other…

A cognitive-based system of analysis of spoken discourse was designed to provide details about the way pupils think and talk about issues arising from prose material. Written and spoken responses were analyzed to examine the effects of intellectual ability, differences in the stimulus passage, and prior small group discussion. (Note: Page…

A new look at the standard lecture/discussion format for the large introductory college course is offered, along with suggestions to upgrade its quality. Foci for improvement include organization of lecture material, teacher-student interaction, lecture delivery, feedback, discussion group supervision, and course evaluation. (JMD)

Introduces a simple student-centered activity that can effectively complement a traditional lecture by encouraging group discussion and reflection. Students orally review the lecture in groups and submit summaries to the lecturer that are ultimately compiled into a course review. Discusses the benefits of this practice and students' responses.…

Explains how teachers applied the case method approach in a college pedagogy class, describing the case and context, noting how problem solving evolved within student groups and presenting results from follow-up surveys. Numbers of students in class and time devoted to problem solving were critical to the approach. (SM)

ArtView, developed at Cornell University, allows groups of learners to converse at a distance while viewing an image that has been pre-loaded by the instructor. Results of user-testing revealed that ArtView lacked the elements of personal choice and outstanding physical viewing environment provided by museums; however, most students reported…

Drawing from a five-site multicase study, this paper examines three middle school students' perspectives on weekly classroom discussions that took place over a 6-month period in order to analyze the dynamics of classroom talk and how discussions can be affected by the teacher's interaction with the students. The three students were members of an…

A series of activities were undertaken to understand the underrepresentation of people with disabilities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers and increase their participation in these fields. "AccessSTEM" collaborated with key stakeholders to conduct a "Capacity-Building Institute"…

Few academic debates are as contentious as those surrounding the Dead Sea Scrolls. These fragments of some 800 ancient documents include portions of all but one book of the Hebrew Bible. The first ones were discovered in 1947 by shepherds in caves on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, and are believed to be the oldest surviving Judaic…

Dynamic Learning Communities (DLCs) offer an alternative approach to the traditional Instructional Design (ID) format for learning. This paper outlines the concept of a dynamic learning community as an alternative to teacher-controlled or pre-designed instructional systems. DLCs are groups of people, who form a learning community generally…