Lists four ideas for gaining help from administrators in dealing with alienated remedial students. Suggests and demonstrates choosing materials that appeal to the students rather than to the teachers, and creating activities that engage and challenge the students. (PRA)

Describes the functions and forms of metadiscourse as an alternative to recitation. Presents an analytic-narrative technique for studying discussion. Offers two illustrative examples from two different middle grade classrooms. (SR)

Illustrating with a real-life problem involving a 12th-grade math teacher's decision to fail a college-bound minority student, this article shows how case studies enhance preservice teachers' learning and awareness. In the classroom, teaching strategies, evaluation methods, and decisions about students' lives are inextricably entangled with a…

This paper, in French, describes possible links between moral discussion, moral judgment, moral action, and moral atmosphere in a readaptation unit for male adolescent delinquents in which the Just Community Approach was used. Results showed an improvement in individual moral judgment and decreased frequency of misbehaviors after group…

Describes techniques for promoting conversation in teaching action-research to preservice and inservice teachers, discussing the theory framing the study and examining how conversation was promoted in one action-research class. Data from observations, student work, and student evaluations indicated that students found the techniques for promoting…

Explored Banks' stages of ethnic identity development as a framework for discussing young adult, multiethnic literature in graduate level literature circles. Interviews, field notes, videotapes, journals, and ethnic identity protocols indicated that using the typology stimulated quality discussions, and students reflected on their own ethnic…

In an experiment in cross-disciplinary collaboration involving three courses at Morehead State University during spring semester, 1997, small groups worked collaboratively within a virtual environment to define solutions for children's health issues as described by an early childhood education class. The instructors and a consultant utilized…

Reflects on how the author's third-grade students, experienced in literary conversation from their reading workshop, transferred the practice of literary conversation to their writing workshop. (SR)

Examines the presence of two factors, cooperative learning training and problem-solving computer-based instruction (CBI), in 23 studies which compared cooperative CBI (C-CBI) and individual CBI (I-CBI). Results provide more evidence that cooperative learning and problem-solving CBIs are important factors in increasing achievement, group…

Reports on a study in which 31 undergraduate students practiced academic argumentation by e-mail. In the two "tutored" e-mail study groups, discussion topics were selected by the tutor, while in the two self-directed "student-led" groups, selection was by the students. Results support the superiority of the student-led mode over the tutor-led mode…

Asserts that to implement successful literature groups in which students discuss their responses to a common piece of literature they have read, a teacher must consider setting an appropriate classroom environment, choosing quality literature, forming heterogeneous groups, selecting reading schedules, teaching diverse methods of responding,…

Describes how an online conference was used in a graduate poetry class with students not accustomed to using technology in their coursework. Suggests that it extended the depth and quality of discussion, opening up new areas of discourse; and that students went beyond assigned topics to create and engage in their own discourse enriched by their…

Demonstrates that the ways people reflect individually are shared across cultures, but the ways they reflect collaboratively are structured differently among cultures, examining cultural differences in communication and discussion methods and concluding that these differences have implications for teacher education. Teacher educators must be…

Describes how a teacher of a college introductory-literature course used role-playing, a talk-show format, and reader-audience participation to help students make collaborative meaning for, and to promote students' active engagement with a Flannery O'Connor short story. (SR)

Describes focus-group activities designed to generate information for use in decision making about core and elective courses in a library and information science (LIS) curriculum. Discusses how focus-group activity fits with LIS program review. Also includes questions asked and responses; and feeding opinions into a decision apparatus. (AEF)