Describes the use of a microcomputer-based authoring system to facilitate student-centered discovery oriented learning in an undergraduate social science course. Use of the authoring system to implement student-generated experiments, to become familiar with statistics and experimental methods, and to promote empirical thinking is discussed. (14…

Describes a project in which a group of students wrote and published a history of their high school. Lists objectives of the project, such as developing research, analytic, interpersonal, and communication skills and self-esteem. Includes preparing a blueprint of ideas, researching, writing, marketing, and distributing the school's history. (DK)

Relates a teaching strategy whereby introductory sociology students wrote and analyzed their own stories to create a self-published book. Describes course goals as becoming familiar with sociological perspectives, concepts, strategies, and methods and to develop reading, analytical thinking, and writing skills. Includes discussion of the course…

Suggests the "create-a-game" examination technique as a supplemental or alternative evaluation method for a history of psychology course. Describes a take home test in which students design and construct games that incorporate a range of knowledge from the course material. Recommends playing the games in class as a course review. (DK)

Describes benefits of integrating video production into high school curricula. Hardware requirements are suggested, including a camcorder, video cassette recorder, computer, software, converter, character generator, and editing machine; and typical video production projects are described, including a yearbook, documentaries, tutorials, music…

Describes a student research project for a research methods course in which students present their work as a poster session. Explains that students are graded for visual display and oral presentation. Reports that students are more thorough in self-evaluations after their efforts at public display. (DK)

Describes innovative ways elementary teachers turned watching and producing television programs into active, hands-on learning. Students created a videotaped student book review program, watched the weather channel, viewed public television's after school "Homework Helpline," and tuned into educational programs that could be linked to…

In literature on problem-based learning (PBL), it is often difficult to determine whether the educational approach being described is actually PBL. Provides planners and assessors of PBL curricula with a framework for analysis. Educational activities can be categorized as PBL according to three core principles and four criteria concerning their…

Highlights the learner test-writing process, in which pupils write their own tests. The process consists of a number of steps, including reviewing the material learned, writing the questions, taking the test, and going over the graded test. (Author/VWL)

Students in instructional design (ID) courses typically propose a solution to an instructional problem without a clear understanding of the instructional problem. Often, this type of response is disconcerting to ID instructors. Owing to the way in which the ID process is managed, significant time may pass between design proposal and design review.…

As part of a two-year study, Pamela G. Taylor's high school art students constructed hypertext webs that linked the subject matter they studied in class to their own independent research and personal experiences, which in turn encouraged them to think critically about the material. Taylor bases this use of hypertext on the thinking of Paulo Freire…

The absence of an authoring agency in higher education is often reflected in the bewilderment of students who feel they have been forced to take courses which have no relevance to their life goals and interests. At the University of Washington School of Drama, a project was developed to involve undergraduates in the development of an open-ended…

This book offers suggestions to parents for implementing interest-initiated learning in home-school situations. Interest-initiated learning is based on three principles: (1) the learner initiates and controls learning according to his or her own interests; (2) the student's own priorities guide the learner; and (3) the teacher only enters the…

Over the past several years, teachers at the West Virginia University Child Development Laboratory have used the language experience approach to develop the literacy skills of young children. To increase child involvement, a scrapbook project for 4-year-olds was conducted each Wednesday for 1 academic year. Each child received a scrapbook and…

This bibliography was assembled by a history and Afro-American studies class at Bowdoin College (Maine). The document emphasizes primary sources on antislavery from the manuscript collection of the college. The guide lists 38 graduates of the college including well known figures such as Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, as well…