The integration of technology into modern classrooms has enhanced learning opportunities for students. With increased access to educational content, students gain a better understanding of the concepts being taught. "Flipped Instruction: Breakthroughs in Research and Practice" is a comprehensive reference source for the latest scholarly…

Describes a group project from a course on rural, countercultural communitarians' attempts to create utopian communities. Explains that the project gives students the opportunity to integrate material from a variety of sources and to apply it to a group term paper. Suggests that the project utilizes experiential methods for learning abstract…

A common problem in an "experiential class" is the lack of attention devoted to group closure at the end of the course. Toward the end of the semester, students working in small groups in organizational behavior classes often experience anxiety over losing the support and identity that they enjoyed as members of a small learning group. A final…

Presents a classroom exercise that can help students focus on the difficulties in defining normal sexual behavior. Provides a 30-item questionnaire on which students indicate whether or not a variety of behaviors are normal. States that students then meet in groups and construct a definition of "normal" sexual behavior. (DB)

This paper focuses on the answering and asking of questions in college-level courses and makes suggestions regarding questioning techniques for lecture classes and discussion groups. "Question" (Q) is defined as "any eliciting of an answer (response) regardless of grammatical form. "Answer" (A) is defined as "any…

In a method called "cooperative controversy," students team up to study controversial subjects, then synthesize their findings. In a philosophy course, small-groups work on a specific philosophical problem. Group work was as effective as traditional lecture in three cases and more effective in two cases. (MLW)

Describes a writing assignment designed to aid students' perception of audience, purpose, format, vocabulary, pertinent information, and peer editing. Establishes a framework for both independent student research and group work and revision. Encourages students to establish a rapport with groups to evaluate the writing's content, presentation,…

This viewer's guide is designed to encourage discussion about the issues covered in the four-part public television series "Liberty & Limits: 'The Federalist' Idea 200 Years Later" that aired during 1997. The series examines whether the current U.S. political system still matches the vision of its founders. The guide offers: an essay…

Describes a class activity demonstrating the reality of revolution to introductory political science students. Student "plants" rebel against a teacher's "injustice," overthrow the teacher when he calls on a higher authority, and mobilize the class to sign a petition. Follow-up discussion covers elements required for revolution. (LS)

Suggests five activities for the college classroom to stimulate discussion when students report results of small- group discussions to the class as a whole. The activities "newsprint dialogue," rotating small-group stations, "snowballing,""cocktail party," and "jigsaw" stress maximum student participation, interaction, and intellectual engagement.…

To bring educational research into focus with tested classroom practice, this booklet provides an introduction to small group discussion. The theory and research section discusses the importance of small group discussion, characteristics of small group discussions, group attraction based on Maslow's hierarchy of basic human needs, group decision…

Describes a community-college curriculum that incorporates Socratic Dialogue Inducing (SDI) laboratories into a new calculus-based preengineering physics sequence. SDI allows for group discussion labs that emphasize the concepts being taught in the lectures. (ZWH)

Describes a number of informal "turn-to-your-neighbor" approaches that create an active learning environment in college lecture settings. These include: launching class in discussion, breaking up the lecture for comprehension checks, closing class with small-group conversation, and debriefing exams. (DB)

Graduate students studying personnel evaluation were each assigned to interview three professionals regarding their experiences with personnel evaluation. Five interview questions, common across the 12 class members, were supplied. In class, students were formed into groups, a chairperson and recorder were selected for each group, and an agenda…

Suggests that microbiology activities/experiments are suitable for teaching skills in designing experiments, manipulating tables/graphs, and the rewriting of work. Shows how students design an experiment using a table and how another experiment provides material for a group discussion on writing and rewriting. (DH)