Focusing on the difficulties primary teachers often encounter when trying to get their students to listen, this article presents two exercises that have proved effective in improving students' listening skills. The first exercise, "The Echoing Fishbowl," provides children with attentive listening experience by putting them in a situation in which,…

Teacher selection and planning of appropriate transition activities for preschool age children is discussed in this paper. Teachers are encouraged to use transition time to provide an opportunity for imaginative and creative thinking and to avoid tedious waiting and chaos. Transition activities can be used as a teaching technique to prepare…

Part I of this booklet introduces the concept of the student-centered approach to teaching with a description of the salient features of student-centered activities. These features have characteristics that increase student participation: (1) the ability to create; (2) divergent rather than convergent thinking; (3) exercising curiosity and being…

Organizing writing students into three-member editorial groups is a teaching technique that focuses student attention on the stages of the writing process, their progression, and their interrelation. The technique also increases peer cooperation and evaluation, while enabling teachers to spend less time grading homework and more time working with…

The Academic Foundations Department at Rutgers University developed an alternative method for encouraging writing that allows the students to work together in small groups. This method, called group composing, has many advantages: it is process-oriented rather than product-focused; it allows students to become aware of the options available to…

This booklet of short essays on humanizing the education of children was printed to help elementary educators focus on the main purpose for their being--to help children fully realize their humanity. The author's educational philosophy and its applications are covered by such subjects as the individual in a democracy, the meaning of freedom, the…

Guided design, an educational strategy based on the conviction that students are educated better by working through an ascending order of well-designed problems than by passively accumulating knowledge, employs small groups of students attacking open-ended problems. This paper describes guided design--its operation and advantages in the…

Results of a two-year followup study are reported of students in a course on social work with groups in which the only mechanism for evaluation of learning was a small group oral examination. The effectiveness of the method is discussed regarding responsiveness to student self-image and promotion of theory/practice integration. (Author/LBH)

Explains how social studies teachers can teach cooperative behavior to junior high students. Three critical factors are length of time student groups have worked together, interdependence of goals attached to the tasks, and interdependence of means to accomplish the tasks. (Author/AV)

Describes two teaching techniques for the foreign language classroom. The first involves the use of magazine pictures and simple drama techniques. The second, known as "task listening," asks students to listen only for certain things in a text and to carry out tasks such as completing maps, diaries, order forms, etc. (SED)

Describes a nonthreatening method for introducing videotaping to a speech class by allowing students to construct videotaped projects, such as news programs or interviews in groups. (HTH)

This paper addresses the developments of a class of fifth-grade children as they worked modeling problems during the first year of a 3-year longitudinal study. In contrast to usual classroom problems where students find a brief answer to a particular question, modeling activities involve students in authentic case studies that require them to…

This annual serial volume offers readers glimpses into learning communities, demonstrating how students are brought together for the common purpose of learning. It gives a view of the teacher as learning guide and facilitator of group discussions and activities. The articles are a primer on how to build one's own learning community. The overriding…

Suggests the technique of brainstorming, in which a group generates spontaneous thoughts regarding how something might be used or how a problem might be solved, as a valuable way to help elementary school children learn science. (JR)

An Idea Sharing Day is cosponsored by Emporia State University and the local school district of Emporia, Kansas. This cosponsorship fosters positive relations between the university and the schools, supporting efforts to provide more effective education for the elementary child. The Idea Sharing Day has created a wealth of fresh ideas for physical…