Advocates role playing for teaching a unit on the legislative branch of government. Students were divided into political parties, sat on committees, and produced legislation. Concludes that experiencing the governmental process enhances citizen participation. (GG)

Describes a lesson plan that introduces students in grades 10-12 to the decorative arts as a vehicle for exploring the cultural framework as a means of communicating various aspects of the human experience. Students design a story cloth based on a visual symbol they have developed to represent a human issue such as famine or war. (LS)

"The Elementary Economist" shows third graders how communities change. "News!" (C. Hunter) requires middle school students to produce a class newspaper based on a history topic currently being studied. "Patriotism in the 80's," (M. A. Barber), allows secondary students to examine U.S. patriotism throughout history. (GEA)

Cites reports pointing to a lack of geographical literacy in the United States. Provides a lesson plan on the identification of countries in the Middle East, utilizing repetitive drill and mnemonic devices. Describes this activity as one way of helping students remember place-name geography facts. (RW)

Addresses the problem of geographic literacy with respect to the Caribbean Basin. Provides a lesson plan, including maps and charts, that encourages and challenges students to learn the geography of the Caribbean Basin, and to think about the problems that develop when large numbers of legal and illegal immigrants enter the United States. (RW)

Interviews with 6 junior high school teachers in Israel (3 novices and 3 who had 4-19 years of experience) yielded the following contexts for professional dilemmas: transition from student to teacher for novices; classroom concerns such as autonomy, curriculum planning, and ethical issues for both groups; and gaps between ideology and reality in…

Discusses the educational benefits of cooperative learning, critiquing cooperative learning techniques and approaches. Identifies steps involved in successful teacher implementation of cooperative learning. Provides an elementary and secondary cooperative lesson plan and activities from the Learning Together approach on the U.S. Constitution,…

Outlines a lesson plan for discussing the civil rights of public school students. Uses the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier as a basis for discussing freedom of expression protected by the First Amendment. Provides materials for student use and detailed directions for implementation of the lesson. (KO)

Describes a staff development program used by the Cambridge (Massachusetts) elementary schools in conjunction with the implementation of multicultural curriculum components. Includes a lesson plan in which staff developers model multicultural literature and cooperative learning strategies. (FMW)

To develop students' abilities to reason with mathematics and apply mathematics to problem solving are abetted by building on their personal experiences, integrating the curricula, and designing learning activities that require students to write or speak about mathematics. Using an integrated approach is discussed and examples are included. (MNS)

Describes the planning and implementation of a resource-based inquiry unit about the position of women in society to coincide with Women's History Month. Details the scheduling, content, and structure of the unit, as well as student, participant, and teacher reactions to the project. (JKP)

This article summarizes a framework for identifying skills relevant to self-determination for individuals with disabilities and describes the use of the Life Centered Career Education secondary curriculum to promote self-determination. This curriculum consists of almost 350 lesson plans organized into domains, competencies and subcompetencies, and…

Cooperative learning activities can help teachers of students with multiple disabilities increase student participation in integrated activities and identify and meet individual learner needs. Specific guidelines for forming groups, designing lesson plans, and evaluating groupwork are offered. Outcomes of implementing these activities have been…

Describes 8 math/science integrated activities in which students will be able to assemble periodic, reflectional symmetry, 5- and 10-fold rotational, and Penrose patterns. (MKR)

Students in general and science-oriented curriculum courses used concept mapping as the basis for developing lesson plans after having first learned the technique through a "fast-track" approach developed by the author. Resulting lesson plans were high in quality with few, if any, sequencing errors. (LZ)