Highlights classroom role playing in Saudi Arabian classrooms as a psychological aid that fosters self-confidence in inhibited, timid, hesitant, and passive students and relieves them of their paternal communicative limitations. Proposes an overall strategy for role-playing as an effective communicative activity that teachers can exploit to help…

Outlines a simple values clarification technique which can be used to assess students' attitudes towards a controversial issue in order to facilitate group selection. Presents a case study that illustrates the use of the technique for group differentiation, summative evaluation, and research. Examines theoretical questions about how role play…

This article describes a learning activity, the Texas History Walk, in which third- and seventh-grade gifted students learn about life in the 1870s on the Texas frontier. The younger students interact with the actors, seventh graders role-playing characters of the 1870s. Benefits of the activity include its interdisciplinary nature, the cross-age…

Reviews the research literature about cooperative learning and technology, describes role-playing software programs designed for cooperative learning, and shows how Web pages built on a WebQuest model can be used to augment these programs. (AEF)

This article uses a classroom Civil War exercise to illustrate how teachers can use fist-person characterization to communicate social history. It describes the benefits of first-person characterization for gifted students and outlines a seven-day schedule for a unit on the Civil War. (Contains references.) (CR)

The "ISSS Annual Conference Proceedings" is a peer-reviewed professional publication published once a year following the annual conference. The following papers are included in the 2013 proceedings: (1) Teaching About Asia in a Social Science Education Program (Cyndi Mottola Poole and Joshua L. Kenna); (2) Teaching Students about…

Part of the Understanding Our Environment project that is designed to engage students in investigating specific environmental problems through concrete activity and direct experience, this unit contains a role-play activity in the form of a public inquiry into the cause of a fish kill on a river that runs through the fictional town of Oakwood. A…

This poster, illustrated with a graphic of a caterpillar changing to a cocoon and emerging as a butterfly, presents learning activities for 7 weeks based on the seven stages of growth in the President's "Call to Action." Each week includes 5 days of activities based on seven themes: (1) "Reading on Your Own"; (2) "Getting…

The purpose of this text is to introduce creative dramatics to those who are concerned with the lives of children, especially parents, teachers, and those preparing to teach. Chapter one examines how children play and how they use play to meet important growth needs. In chapter two, creative dramatics is defined, and the crucial role of the…

Pro-nuclear power "educational materials" designed or promoted by energy and utility companies lack objectivity about alternative energy resources. A free comic book distributed to public schools in New Mexico and a simulation game supplied to Maryland public schools at the expense of utility customers are described. (SW)

Recently a group of Newcastle teachers spent a week inside some London schools teaching classes they had never seen before. They worked with local teachers and children under the eagle eye of Dorothy Heathcote. Here is a report on the way that the week developed. (Editor/RK)

Describes the use of drama in the social studies classroom as a method of motivating students at all levels of education. Presents a rationale for using drama, identifies successful practitioners of this method, discusses the procedure for its use, and reports the responses of students to it. (GEA)

The authors state that gifted education programs would serve a twofold purpose. First, high-powered programs would demonstrate that agriculture is more than farming. Further, in attracting superior students, agricultural education programs would recruit those students with the abilities needed to fill positions requiring such advanced technical…

Presents strategies for helping students develop their metacognitive abilities. Teachers must specifically encourage thinking about thinking. (MD)

Maintains that simulation games in social studies education are successful because they combine factual content, skills development, and experience in decision making. The five simulations described are Explorers I, River City, Boxcars, The Union Divides, and Starpower. (Author/DB)