In the Netherlands, the Dutch government instituted policies that enable persons with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities (PIMD) to attend day services. Over the past 15 years, surveys have indicated a progressive increase in the number of hours that such adults spend at day activities centers. However, information about how these…

The aim of this article is to report on the strategies which were used to teach research design to Masters students, as part of my professional development as higher education practitioner. The focus is on exploring the use of cooperative learning as a vehicle to facilitate the acquiring of knowledge and skills in terms of research methodology.…

This paper examines some personal and interpersonal issues concerning group work and informal learning in the music classroom. It analyses data from a recent research project, which adopted and adapted the informal music learning practices of popular musicians, for use in the classroom. The discussion focuses on three aspects of the project.…

This paper reports on a collaborative staff development activity run across two Australian universities, for academic staff integrating Web 2.0 technologies into their teaching. It describes a three-week long virtual workshop on teaching with wikis, where participants in two groups developed a group project as students and then assessed the work…

Recognizing recent criticisms concerning the cross-cultural generalizability of self-determination theory (SDT), the authors tested the SDT view that high school students in collectivistically oriented South Korea benefit from classroom experiences of autonomy support and psychological need satisfaction. In Study 1, experiences of autonomy,…

In a statistics course for bachelor students in econometrics a new format was adopted in which students were encouraged to study more actively and in which cooperative learning and peer teaching was implemented. Students had to work in groups of two or three students where each group had to perform certain tasks. One of these tasks was: explaining…

This article examines how 31 triads of 6- to 10-year-old children from 3 cultural backgrounds organized their interactions while folding Origami figures. Triads of children whose families had immigrated to the United States from indigenous heritage regions of Mexico (and whose mothers averaged only 7 grades of schooling) coordinated more often as…

This study focuses on an attempt by a Swedish secondary school teacher to fashion a more participatory education situation by involving his students in deciding the rules for their group work. Five group sessions were video recorded and examined using a conversation-analytic approach. The findings show a complex interplay between democratic and…

This article presents a classroom ethical decision-making exercise designed to help students make reasoned ethical decisions while gaining insight into their own and others' ethical decision-making strategies. During the exercise, students individually analyze an original mini-case, then meet in small groups to reach consensus on the advice and…

Computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) has captured many educators and researchers to contribute their efforts on this domain. This study proposed a two-dimension concept to explain learners' collaboration behaviors in a CSCL laboratory setting. A two-dimension process, namely perceptual dimensions and supportive dimensions, is useful to…

Research Findings: The study evaluated the "safe kindergarten" program designed to promote kindergartners' communication and social skills based on principles of Imago marital and family counseling (H. Hendrix, 1990). Participants were 92 kindergartners from 4 kindergartens (intervention = 46; comparison = 46). Teachers in intervention…

Sfard and Kieran [Kieran, C., Educational Studies in Mathematics 46, 2001, 187-228; Sfard, A., Educational Studies in Mathematics 46, 2001, 13-57; Sfard, A. and Kieran, C., Mind, Culture, and Activity 8, 2001, 42-76] have developed a methodological framework, which aims at characterizing the students' mathematical discourses while they are working…

This article provides a detailed analysis of the teachers who attended the training for primary education and viewed pre-recorded cassette using Group Observation method. First the paper discusses detailed methodology on group observation and in the second part the findings suggest that for better production of any video programme for training the…

In this article we report on a group activity, based on previous work [Hansson & Redfors: 2006b, "Science & Education" (accepted)], in an upper secondary physics class in Sweden. The aim was to engage students in a discussion about which presuppositions that are really necessary for physics. During the activity the students were…

Development of mathematical problem solving skills is an age old problem in mathematics. This paper details the design of a component of a first year university mathematics course in which group work and mathematical communication skills, especially writing skills, are used as a tool to develop non-routine problem solving skills. In this design…