The success of teaching molecular and atomic phenomena depends on the didactical strategy and the media selection adopted, in consideration of the level of abstraction of the subject to be taught and the students' capability to deal with abstract operations. Dale's cone of experience was employed to plan three 50-minute classes to discuss protein…

Middle school history teachers confront the same challenge every day: how to convey the breadth and depth of a curriculum that spans centuries, countries, and cultures. In "Making History Mine", Sarah Cooper shows teachers how to use thematic instruction to link skills to content knowledge. By combining thought-provoking activities and rich…

Recent curriculum changes in Scotland and England have provided teachers and children with an exciting opportunity. The focus is shifting from a content-led curriculum to one that has a greater emphasis on skills and personal capability. In Scotland this is particularly evident with the emphasis on the development of children as successful…

Conference proceedings of the 24th Annual Conference on the Teaching of Psychology: Ideas and Innovations, sponsored by the Psychology Department of the State University of New York at Farmingdale. The conference theme for 2010 was Fostering, Assessing, and Sustaining Student Engagement. The conference featured two keynote addresses from prominent…

For an end-of-the-school-year treat, students brought in gifts for their favorite characters from novels they had read during the year. Suggested lists of characters and books, and ways to organize and run the party, are provided. (JL)

Presents an exercise for students of French in which the students are called upon to create a courtroom environment to try a famous historical personnage for an alleged crime. In this case, the writer Guy de Maupassant is put on trial for murder. (CK)

Describes how the author role-played a character from "To Kill a Mockingbird" to stimulate classroom discussion of the novel. (MM)

Describes how, as a portion of the oral presentation assignment, business communication professors can foster a professional atmosphere in the classroom for both speakers and listeners by having students in the audience play roles commonly found during a business question and answer session. Discusses the roles, implementing them, and the benefits…

Explains what software manufacturers are doing to combat software piracy, recommends how managers should deal with this problem, and provides a role-playing exercise to help students understand the issues in software piracy. (SR)

Nonverbal communication is fundamental to any comprehensive examination of human interaction. This article presents an activity that can be easily applied by any instructor as a starting point for a discussion of nonverbal communication, or as a demonstration of learning points previously discussed. Instructors should have a slight background in…

Pupils who are far along in their speaking vocabularies tend to do well in reading. This paper includes numerous speaking activities that bolster pupils' oral communication: the including use of puppets, role playing, committee endeavors, oral reports, oral reading, extemporaneous speaking, and giving directions. Additional experiences for pupils…

Describes a class activity in which a student portrays the main character of a book and is interviewed, press conference style, by the class. Argues that responses to literature can be more fun with this unusual approach. (RS)

Presents transcripts of a "good" interview and a "bad" interview. Gives role-playing exercises for interviewing and using quotes. Instructs the teacher to make specific points about what was done well and what could be done better. Discusses how using these exercises can make learning to be a reporter fun. (SC)

The document is a summary of the conference proceedings for the 23rd Annual Farmingdale State College Teaching of Psychology Conference held on March 20-21, 2009 at the DoubleTree Hotel in Tarrytown, New York. The conference featured a keynote address by Dr. Jeffrey Nevid on Reaching and teaching the millennials: Helping today's students become…