Many disadvantaged students show incipient excellence underlying perceived errors in literacy performance. The paper examines research on helping teachers think more generatively about increasingly diverse student populations. Preservice teachers can be taught to handle multicultural classrooms by interpreting problematic student performance in…

This article introduces development and design approaches to organizational change (DIL). Simulation games can be used for promoting organizational development. They offer an arena for organization members to analyze the present state of an organization and create new organizational solutions. The bridge between the present and future mode of…

Organizational innovation is a difficult process. Most innovations fail. If an innovation fails there is a high probability the organization will be fractured. It is easy to break apart an organization. It is much more difficult to build it back up. This is a case study of an innovation in a branch of a large private English language school in…

The title of this volume, "Learning Languages in the Digital Age," focuses on the integration of technology to promote authentic and interactive communication within and outside the walls of the language classroom. Major innovations have shifted Internet use from a consumer to a participatory model; that is, previously, Internet users…

A content area literacy course is examined to assess how teacher educators might respond to prospective teachers' beliefs in light of the particular goals of a particular course or teacher education experience. Content Area Literacy is a methods course that emphasizes teaching strategies and the rationales underlying them. It is examined to reveal…

The Instructional and Performance Technology Department at Boise State University (Idaho) offers a master's degree program via distance education to prepare adult students for careers in the areas of instructional design, job performance improvement, human resources, organizational redesign, training, and training management. Most students attend…

The "Preparing Elementary Teachers to Teach Mathematics (PETTM) Project" (1988-1991) was a cooperative university/school effort to improve the teaching of mathematics by elementary teachers with its primary focus on improving the university training of preservice teachers (PSTs) in mathematics. This document, the last of the project's…

This proceedings report is organized into four sections dealing respectively with: (1) global issues facing extension education; (2) extension strategies and methods; (3) extension planning and evaluation; and (4) training and curriculum development. The following papers are included: "Extension Science: To Broaden the Scope" (van…

The Urban Mathematics Collaborative (UMC) project has the goal of contributing to the improvement of mathematics education in the inner-city schools by identifying models to enhance the professional lives of teachers and encouraging the entry of high school mathematics teachers into a larger mathematics community including mathematicians from…

As the Suzuki method of music instruction has spread from Japan to other countries, its methods have been modified to adapt to the culture of those countries. In this paper the Japanese cultural background, and the principles and methods developed in Japan are discussed and compared with the adaptations made in the United States. The Suzuki method…

This paper reports the findings from a pilot study that investigated the uses of computer-mediated communication in an educational psychology course for pre-service teachers that focused on problem-based learning via CD-ROM-based case analysis. Thirty-nine pre-service teachers and eight practicing teachers participated in the development of an…

By focusing on controversial social/political issues in high school American history and social studies courses, classroom teachers can help students develop critical thinking skills. Contemporary issues of a controversial nature are particularly good topics for high school because students are generally familiar with the issues through exposure…

The document presents two papers related to philosophy instruction at the high school level. The first paper suggests how to motivate beginning philosophy students by injecting a sense of reality and relevance into class discussions. One recommendation for furthering this sense of reality is to ask questions of current interest such as whether…

This volume contains conference papers in which representatives from case method-oriented organizations present ideas on interactive, interdisciplinary, intercultural, and international teaching and learning. Eight chapters include: (1) "Case Method Research and Evaluation" (e.g., cross-cultural case research and writing and teaching…

Conceptual change as a professional development model has moved elementary science teaching beyond lecture and the memorization of facts to science instruction congruent with the National Science Education Standards (National Research Council, 1996). However, research on the effectiveness of conceptual change teaching reveals some of its…