Describes the two-day experiential, adventure-based orientation for a teacher-education program focused on developing teaching skills for collaborative learning and leadership within diverse learning communities. Participants established expectations, concerns, and ground rules before experiencing discrimination and collaboration through group…

Investigates the effects of children solving addition and subtraction problems collaboratively in contrast to solving problems on their own. Explores the effects of ability and gender on the outcomes of group collaboration. Presents and discusses the results. Includes references and an appendix. (CMK)

Addresses the use of fiction to teach undergraduate students about sociological theories and concepts. Discusses how "A Thousand Acres" (Jane Smiley) was used in a sociology of families course. Includes descriptions of the plot and themes in the book and the group work and paper assigned in conjunction with Smiley's novel. (CMK)

Considers reader response to be a useful teaching method when it is linked with course goals and integrated into the structure of the classroom. Recommends reader response because it promotes critical thinking and comprehension of reading materials, facilitates class participation, and engages students in the learning process. Gives a sample…

This book presents a wide selection of issues currently of interest and concern in higher education institutions in Ireland. The chapters are snapshots of the intersection between theory, practice and research in particular settings; they are not meant to be comprehensive. Nevertheless, they present practice approaches, new theoretical…

This study sought to describe graduate students' opinions of selected learning activities encountered in large-group, teacher-led instructional contexts. The subjects, 40 graduate students of instructional technology at a major western university, completed a questionnaire. The instrument asked subjects to rate each of ten alternative learning…

Many college faculty increasingly do much of their work, i.e., teaching, conducting research, and writing, in partnership with colleagues. This is due to such things as rapidly changing technologies and increasingly specialized knowledge. Faculty collaboration usually takes two principal forms, teaching and research, and are often distinctive…

This ERIC digest looks at how college faculty can use cooperative learning principles to ensure that students actively create their own knowledge and work together to achieve shared learning goals. The first section describes cooperative learning and recommends training professors to apply an overall system to build cooperative activities,…

This guide provides staff development leaders in schools and school districts with practical information about professional development systems. It is organized in eight chapters, each dealing with a phase of an effective professional development program. The essential components of the program constitute a framework for staff development. The…

Opening activites (to create an atmosphere of cooperation and a desire to work, explore, and learn together) and closing activities (to summarize what has happened or been learned) for outdoor education programs are described. All activities are intended to incite enthusiasm to learn and make the learning activity a desired, joyful experience.…

The advantages of using journals in the college classroom are their versatility and their transferability to teaching at every level. Three types of journal writing are very effective in engaging students in purposeful, repeated writing: individual journals in which student and teacher maintain a written dialogue throughout the course; class…

Drawing on previously unpublished archival materials as well as historical accounts of American education and the self-help tradition of education in the United States, this book examines the origins, theoretical bases, and implications of writing groups. Following an introduction that points out the varied circumstances under which writing groups…

To help committed student writers make the transition from school-sponsored to self-sponsored forms of discourse, an advanced expository writing course combines student-chosen writing assignments with a pedagogical structure that promotes a sensitive and critical response to prose. The class is organized into writing groups containing four or five…

A small group of college students studying writing in English as a second language was assigned a written report on the university's contributions to the community. The required tasks included compilation of data, delivery of oral reports, composition of the research report, group communication, revision of drafts, documentation of sources, and…

A general education cluster course structure at the State University of New York, Plattsburgh, is described. Philosophy, anthropology, and geography classes met separately to cover the different disciplines, and joint sessions for learning exercises were held. Cluster course objectives were: to provide undergraduates with a broad and integrative…