"Talking Points: Discussion Activities in the Primary Classroom" encourages and supports classroom discussion on a range of topics, enabling children to develop the important life-skill of effective group communication. Children who can explain their own ideas and take account of the points of view and reasons of others are in the process of…

Through an examination of one undergraduate American history course at a large university in the southeastern United States via interview, observation and content analysis, we attempted to discern if the pedagogical methodology was relating to the students in such a way as to foster students' ability to construct meaning beyond simply…

Over the past two decades, interest in Holocaust education has grown substantially as individual states, starting in the 1980s, began to mandate and/or recommend Holocaust studies as part of the social studies curriculum. As a result, these mandates and/or interest in the Holocaust have spawned any number of curriculum products, some of which seek…

Contends that teachers assign essay writing to help students improve their critical thinking skills. Discusses six criteria of a well-written history essay. Includes a five-essay assignment strategy, designed to be implemented over the course of an academic year, to help students improve essay research and writing. (CFR)

Presents three responses to the perennial student question, "Why study history?": (1) the acquisition of higher-order thinking skills; (2) the construction of history through a consistent and clear lens; and (3) the safeguarding of American individualism. Asserts that teachers need to provide frameworks that allow students to interpret…

Describes a cooperative-learning program jointly developed by computer education and world history teachers in which secondary students create mock newspapers. Asserts that the project fulfilled cross-disciplinary objectives and encouraged critical thinking skills. Includes examples from the student-created newspapers. (CFR)