Describes a study unit focusing on the book, "A Street through Time" (Anne Millard). Explains that the unit incorporates small group work within learning centers and daily class discussions. Outlines the student activities and individual projects within the learning center. (CMK)

Focuses on the importance of developing student listening skills. Describes a classroom project for fifth-grade students in which they created a music video, addressing the roles of the students and the teacher. Includes a section detailing the steps involved in completing this project. (CMK)

Asserts that holidays offer excellent opportunities to teach about cultural diversity and enrich the social studies curriculum. Provides five activities for teaching about holidays in elementary schools. Includes three charts keyed to the activities. (CFR)

Examines the negative consequences of group grades in cooperative learning situations: they are unfair; they make report cards less meaningful; they undermine motivation; they convey the wrong message; they violate individual accountability; and they create parental resistance to cooperative learning. Alternative ideas for rewarding group efforts…

Discusses the effect of collaboration via e-mail links on the quality of 10- to 11-year-old students' science investigative skills in six elementary rural schools. The project identified several important issues related to teacher-inservice training requirements, development in cooperative groupwork for children, and software design. (AIM)

Examines American and Italian children's early literacy awareness and activities in preschools. Reveals that children take literacy activities and knowledge from formal lessons and then use, refine, and extend these activites with peers. Considers implications of these findings for theoretical work on children's peer cultures and development of…

To study the effects of structured cooperative learning environments on helping interactions and behaviors in the early, middle, and later primary school years, a study was conducted in 11 classrooms across 4 schools in suburban Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Subjects were 172 children (56 in year 2, 68 in year 4, and 52 in year 6). Through…

This series of group guidance activities for kindergarten through sixth grade teaches concepts based upon essential skills for students included in "Guidance and Counseling State Plan for Excellence in Alabama Public Schools" (Bulletin 1984, No. 39) (The State Plan). The activities focus on personal and social skills, educational skills,…

The goal of this paper is to show how experience transcends subject-matter planning. Indeed, there is a paradox in planning authentic experiences; hence the word "quasi-authentic" in the title. Subject matters are defined here as disciplinary genres. They are integrated into a new framework for semiotic research into disciplinary…

Cooperative learning is a teaching strategy that promotes the positive interaction of children in small, heterogeneous groups. Each group contain three or four students of varying achievement levels, backgrounds, socio-economic status, and sex. Cooperative learning processes promote student motivation, build group skills, foster social and…

This ethnographic case study investigated the challenges of six elementary teachers who attempted to embrace, comprehend, and apply elements of cooperative learning. The study examined solutions that teachers found effective in dealing with problems they encountered when using cooperative learning. Over the course of 1 year, researchers collected…

Describes a school district's efforts to make teachers, parents, and students more aware of the importance and fun of reading. (RL)

A critical incident approach was used to analyze the discourse which took place during a visit by a class of 8- and 9-year olds to a gallery concerned with food at the Science Museum in London. Data collection, analysis, and interpretation are discussed. Suggests that a critical incident approach may be more generally helpful in analyzing the…

Describes a multimedia math activity for sixth-grade students who have access to a computer lab. Students work in groups and interview an adult who uses math in his or her job. Then, they write an explanatory narrative describing how that adult uses math. Finally, they create a KidPix video slideshow with voice overlays to share with the class.…

Middle-school students were asked to determine the dimensions of a hotel atrium so that guests could enjoy the maximum area of scenic view, given that 650 feet of brass railing could be used around each floor. Several solution approaches are described. (MKR)