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)

Online discussions are an effective method used to enhance interactions among learners and the instructor. The study examined the differences in communication based on whether the discussions were instructor-moderated or peer-moderated and based on whether the classes consisted of undergraduate or graduate students. Results indicate that student…

Purpose: This report seeks to address the preliminary findings from a large-scale study of the different ways in which the asynchronous discussion forum (ADF) is being used in the online learning environment. Design/methodology/approach: A conceptual approach is taken. Findings: The structural and functional variation of the ADF is depicted within…

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…

THE PRINCIPAL EDUCATIONAL GOALS OF AMERICAN PUBLIC LIBRARIES BETWEEN 1833 AND 1964 WERE CIVIC ENLIGHTENMENT AND PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT, ACCOMPANIED AT VARIOUS PERIODS BY MORAL BETTERMENT, VOCATIONAL IMPROVEMENT, OR CURRENTLY, COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT. THE MAJORITY OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES PROVIDE NOT ONLY MATERIALS, BUT ALSO PERSONAL ASSISTANCE, STIMULATION…

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 manual is designed to introduce extension workers to needs assessment theory and techniques in an applied context and to serve as a tool for planning and implementing county-level assessments of youths' needs for extension education (including 4-H programs). First, the following steps in the program planning process are explained: identify…

This Education for Self Responsibility (ESR) curriculum guide is designed to emphasize drug use prevention for prekindergarten-grade 3 students. The program emphasizes good health care practices, safety, personal responsibility, awareness of others, maintaining health, developing positive self-worth, and recognition of roles as family members. The…

Continuing work begun at a 1988 conference, the Ocotillo Action/Research Groups of the Maricopa Community Colleges (Arizona) explored ways to enhance the use of educational technology and to capitalize on future developments in the field. These interim reports cover work done in 1989-90 and serve as a basis for the next projected conference. The…

Adapted for Indian tribes of the southwest, this leader's guide outlines a training program designed to help Indian people act effectively as the primary sex educators of their children. The guide focuses on ways to help small groups understand attitudes, values, and facts about sexuality and acquire parenting skills such as communicating with…

Issues and findings are synthesized from six invitational regional dialogues attended by 730 representatives of the 80% of women in the work force who are concentrated in low-paying, low-status jobs. The discussion of the needs and concerns of this population makes reference to (1) answers to questionnaires (appended, together with compiled data…

This study tested the effects of linguistic qualifiers and intensifiers on the number and types of replies elicited per argument and per challenge posted in online debates. To facilitate collaborative argumentation, thirty-two students (22 females, 10 males) enrolled in a graduate-level online course classified and labeled their messages as…

The current project linked students in three universities in a guided discussion of the movie, "Three Kings." The goals were to assess the viability of having students from three different courses, in three different universities, in three different countries find common ground to have intellectual discussions via the Internet and to…