Presents rationale for using learning centers in early childhood classrooms. Describes teaching strategies to support active learning, including providing open-ended materials, organizing for independence, introducing centers, brainstorming ideas, and extending children's learning. (KB)

Presents the 1999 winners of the Foxfire Exemplary Classrooms Awards. The winners were diverse in grade level, urban and rural settings, years of experience with the Foxfire core practices, and ideas about how to implement the Foxfire approach. Activities and experiences from each winning classroom are highlighted. Criteria for winning an award…

Discusses the process of creating a classroom newspaper: (1) reading and exploring real newspapers; (2) planning the form and content of the paper and gathering the stories; (3) writing, illustrating, and editing the content of the paper; and (4) printing and distributing the newspaper. Recommends that the process, not the product, be evaluated.…

Focuses on how the use of the Internet enables students to develop the skills necessary to achieve in world history. Discusses some curricular goals and issues involved in world history. Presents some best practices and concludes on the future prospects of using the Internet within the social studies. (CMK)

Describes a participatory exercise in which a simulation is used to create the context of institutional discrimination. Explains that student volunteers leave the room while two terms are defined to the remaining students. When the volunteers return, the entire class is given a pop quiz on the terms. (CMK)

Presents a student project in which students in groups of three or four study an animal type using different learning styles and methods, including electronic media. (YDS)

Discusses the TALESSI (Teaching and Learning at the Environment-Science-Society Interface) Project that aims to enhance three aspects of environmental learning through active learning: (1) interdisciplinarity; (2) values awareness: and (3) critical thinking. Explores the three aspects in detail. Includes 3 appendices. (CMK)

Summarizes literature on techniques for teaching social stratification. Describes the three parts of an exercise that enables students to understand economic and political inequality: students are given a family scenario, create household budgets, and finally rework the national budget with their family scenario groups. Discusses student…

Most of those teachers believing in and supporting active learning propositions begin their internships or student teaching practicums fired up about what they can accomplish and how they will do it. However, very often the realities and rigidity of either the school systems in which they work, the cooperating teachers or mentors with whom they…

The research reported in this paper attempts to document the actual learning practices of working-class people in the context of the much heralded "knowledge-based economy." Our primary thesis is that working-class peoples' indigenous learning capacities have been denied, suppressed, degraded or diverted within most capitalist schooling,…

Today, urban high schools are faced with a variety of pressures that are competing for attention within the classroom. These pressures come from a variety of sources and for a variety of reasons. The situation may involve students who arrive in the classroom unable to read or write at grade level and who display a wide variety of educational…

In traditional science teaching, teachers expect the average student to implicitly learn and apply subtle concepts and to connect seemingly disjointed information. Teachers expect them to actively assemble the building blocks of critical thinking, often without example (Meyers 1986). The critical analysis of issues and problems is second nature to…

This article examines the practice of teaching content-based disciplines through visual art. Qualitative and ethnographic methods are used in researching the teaching practice of a Bible teacher in a Jewish day school. The teaching method under study provides for active learning of the biblical text and demonstrates sensitivity to students'…

Outlines a plan for helping undergraduate students appreciate Max Weber's theoretical achievements, teaching critical thinking about what constitutes 'the good life' in rationalized societies. Uses the book "The McDonaldization of Society" (George Ritzer) to encourage student interest in Weber's work. Describes field exercises and…

Technology education has long struggled to establish itself as an equal partner in general education and often struggled to gain recognition for the value of its instruction. Frequently technology educators tout the effectiveness of their programs based on anecdotal evidence gathered from their classroom experiences on how their instructional…