Describes Dean Kamen's FIRST foundation (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) and its sporting competition that offers high school students hands-on acquaintance with robots of their own creation; its goal is to inspire students to pursue future studies in science and technology by showing them that learning in this area can…

The seven chapters of this book describe the process conference approach to writing instruction. The first chapter presents four principles used in this approach: adequate daily practice time, student control over and responsibility for writing, emphasis on the writing process, and frequent brief conferences between teacher and students and among…

The incorporation of media and technology into the classroom does not ensure the enhancement of student learning. Research has shown that students learn more through active participation in their own learning process. From 1984 to 1987, a teacher's secondary social studies students were actively involved in the National History Day Program (NHDP),…

The Language Shaping Paradigm (LSP) is designed to help improve student language and comprehension by evoking a sample of language and aiding students in a critical review of their personal patterns of language, comprehension, and thought. The basic teaching strategy is built upon having students read essays written or dictated by classmates. Each…

Divided into a major kindergarten to second grade section and a smaller primary school section, this book uses the comments of the elementary school teachers involved to describe the St. George (Australia) Writing Project's conference approach to teaching writing. Following a brief description of this approach as featuring adequate daily practice…

A project was conducted to build motivation and increase language arts skills of disadvantaged students through involvement in a career exploration program. A class of 28 students reviewed career clusters and indicated their personal interest. Employed representatives from the community with backgrounds similar to the students' visited the…

When students become actively involved in technology productions they develop learning skills, communication skills, and visual analysis skills, all of which are applied to real-life learning within the classroom curriculum. Students participate in all stages of the production projects, which proves to be motivating for the students and allows the…

This practicum was designed and implemented to increase the homework completion rate of sixth graders in English classes. Objectives were formulated to reflect a statistical increase in homework completion rate by means of calculation and analysis of a computerized gradebook. A review of the literature revealed several viable strategies to…

Presents a case study of the library media program at Old High Elementary School, Bentonville, Arkansas, which uses production of audiovisual materials to build extrinsic motivation into reading programs for grades five and six and special education classes. Five measurement techniques used to evaluate the program's effectiveness are also…

The decision of a West German English teacher training program to make its own videotapes in the classroom as a replacement for outdated instructional films resulted in heightened student motivation and creativity. Experimental use of the technique in schools produced increased teacher trainee confidence, greater pupil readiness to speak the…

To prevent children with reading difficulties from thinking of themselves as failures, academic experiences must include projects that will motivate them to be responsible learners, enhance their self-concept, and reinforce all the language arts skills. One class of sixth grade students with reading disabilities made minibooks from greeting cards…

Describes the use of audio and video technology to motivate eighth-grade students with special needs to produce a documentary video for a Civil War curriculum unit; profiles the students involved in the project; and evaluates the project based on students' reactions, achievements, and follow-up activities. (LRW)

Current educational theory and practice clearly show that project-based instruction has the potential to enhance learning. Preliminary findings on one type of project-based learning in which students take on the role of hypermedia designers support this claim. This study examined the effect of being hypermedia designers on fourth-graders'…

Student production of videotape recordings for teaching commercial foreign language is a means of engaging students in the learning process, providing ample opportunity for active use of the commercial target language (CTL) in a wide range of contexts, promoting the integration of cultural understanding in CTL communicative behaviors, and…

This guide, produced by teachers and students, departs from the typical approach to language study in that the courses are based neither on a sequential progression of subject matter nor on a chronological view of Latin American history. The primary objective in the planning for both levels of instruction is to develop sociocultural and literary…