Uses the author's experiences to illustrate the challenge of teaching in today's schools. Discusses ways to provide a climate in which students feel they hold ownership, and have relationships with the community of learners around them to engage in discussion about the subject material and further develop their own thinking patterns. Presents…

Describes a master's level course for teachers called "Foundations of Reading Instruction," which was built around students choosing their own goal of what they wanted to learn about the teaching of reading. Discusses the structure of their in-class workshops, goals, midway self-evaluations, the last weeks of their work on their goals, final…

Describes how teachers can develop a student art auction as a way to raise money for an art program, the students, or other causes. Explains that an auction helps students feel like real artists. Discusses each aspect of the process from preliminary decisions to selecting artwork to bidding at the auction. (CMK)

This article provides a rationale for the use of choice in home and school environments, advocates for the systematic and careful use of choice as an intervention strategy, provides examples for embedding choice, and discusses guidelines for use and factors that may limit the use of choice. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

Notes that for women and girls, anxiety about technology is compounded by traditional gender-power dynamics that often position technology as male, and by the development of technological literacy as a product to be mastered rather than nurtured. Questions the extent to which web-based literacies can be taught while also fostering technological…

Discusses the need to use computer-related vocabulary, or tech talk, with minority students to ensure their future in a technogically-driven society. Describes how to motivate students with tech talk by creating a culturally responsive learning environment; acquiring the language of technology; helping students feel comfortable with technology;…

Following a presentation of Rita and Kenneth Dunn's learning styles model at a NAESP convention, staff at a South Dakota elementary school began teaching students according to their own perceptual strengths. This article profiles teachers' efforts and presents an observation checklist for preparing individualized learning style inventories and…

Describes a quasi-experimental study comparing students' perceptions of empowerment in two sections of a graduate social-work course. One section was taught using a traditional format of lectures, exams, and papers. The other was taught with techniques intended to empower students: learning contracts, formative evaluations, and narrative…

Examines the problem of bullying in and around schools, providing information to help those involved in school life recognize the characteristics of a bully and understand the symptoms of children who are victims of bullying. Provides a basis from which caregivers can understand and implement workable intervention strategies. (SM)

Adults cannot adequately prevent their children from observing media messages. Students are actually safer if they are educated about analyzing and assessing unsavory messages for themselves. Appropriate media-literacy pedagogy involves five essential elements: background, tools, deconstruction of media techniques, product evaluation, and original…

Presents practical suggestions for encouraging empowerment in young children. Describes how a shift in the instructional focus from teaching to empowering can be incorporated throughout the school day. Emphasizes that children's qualities, such as kindness, helpfulness, and flexibility, must be encouraged and noted equally as often as tangible…

Presents case study data on one sixth-grade classroom of Kids as Global Scientists (KGS) project participants during the eight-week program. Finds that students made significant gains in weather content knowledge, and interviews revealed a high level of student motivation and satisfaction with the project. (Contains 38 references.) (Author/WRM)

An experiential practitioner discusses the foundations of his ethical perspective on challenge by choice--participant choice within adventure activities. These foundations include existential and experiential philosophy, leisure theory, and the adventure-based counseling model. The ethics of choice and informed consent is discussed in relation to…

Proposes that higher education, particularly community colleges, be evaluated not solely on institutions' functional merits or impact on student income but on their value in developing active citizens. Of special significance is the finding that community college attendance is associated with an increased sense of self-empowerment, and may offer…

Illustrates the use of multigenre research reports, a collection of student responses to a topic that incorporates several different writing modes. A ninth-grade global issues class was assigned a multigenre research project on Latin America. Reveals the results of the projects and provides an appendix. (CMK)