Provides historical information on the potato in Ireland focusing on how the potato arrived in Ireland and the advantages and disadvantages of the potato as a food crop. Discusses the Irish potato famine in Ireland, effects of the famine, and the government's laissez-faire response. Includes a list of questions. (CMK)

Examines factors influencing students' personal voices becoming part of the public talk of an 11th-grade U.S. history class and an 8th-grade language arts class. Finds student participation in discussion is influenced by peer and gender relations and differing conceptions of teaching and knowledge. Notes encouraging students to exercise their…

Proposes a framework within which to consider online courses. Highlights include historical background; pedagogical evolution, including discussions, collaborative activities, online assessment, and interactive course materials; examples of online course models from the United Kingdom's Open University; and the development of new learning…

Simplicity study circles examine how the American preoccupation with affluence destroys individual lives, community, and the environment. Through sharing personal stories, people learn to listen and trust their own judgment. Cooperative discussions about specific problems and their causes and solutions stimulate concern for the common good, which,…

Describes and analyzes how context acts as a resource for and a constraint upon the personal experience narratives of educators. Examines a teacher's story told in a support group for democratic educators. Illustrates the role that context has on storytelling, how teacher-narrators interpret/act upon context, and how context constrains a story.…

Investigates not only the influence but also the confluence of students' and teacher's understandings of the quality of whole class discussions. Focuses on the communication between students and the teacher in the classroom. Considers the role of tools in both supporting and constraining communication in the classroom. (Author/MM)

Describes a class exercise where students in three different courses wrote ten responses to the question "Who am I?", in order to increase their understanding of social constructionism. Reveals that students accurately identified the gender of most respondents and saw this as a useful exercise to help them understand social constructionism. (CMK)

Describes a conceptual framework that can be used to guide the design of distributed learning environments, particularly those that use the capabilities of computer and Internet technology. Discusses implications for improving online collaboration among learners and for informing future designs of computer-supported collaborative learning…

Describes an exercise for teaching about violence where the students keep a one-day journal about their experiences of fear, use of safety strategies, and analyze their findings. Discusses the students' reactions to the exercise and the advantages and disadvantages of this approach. (CMK)

Argues that the way teachers and students transact with a piece of literature needs to change if teachers are to change the way students read and see themselves as readers. Suggests teachers need to support a variety of responses and avoid the tendency to reduce discussion to a search for a single main idea. Includes a brief response by Susan…

Focuses on supplementing content-area instruction with read-alouds and discussions of picture books that engage adolescents, enrich content knowledge, and stimulate higher order thinking. Illustrates how a teacher read-aloud and collaborative picture book discussion enhanced students' engagement and content learning. (SG)

Shares how a fourth-grade teacher learned to use whole-class "Spelling Meetings" as a focus of her spelling instruction. Describes initiating spelling notebooks, the first spelling meeting, and subsequent ones as both teacher and students found their way, making adjustments and finding new directions, and having students catch themselves using a…

Discusses how students read and discuss four selections from the Junior Great Books series, with sixth graders using the "Questioning the Author" approach, and seventh graders using the "Great Books" approach. Reveals that students in the "Questioning the Author" discussions provided longer recalls, and the recalls…

Describes CaMILE (Collaborative and Multimedia Interactive Learning Environment), an online forum for collaboration and reflection. Topics include project-based learning, collaborative domain-relevant student discussions, a model for understanding collaboration tool use, examples of using CaMILE in various university disciplines, and use of the…

Suggests that planned interactions with experts have the potential for giving children a better understanding of the world beyond the classroom, and asserts that receptive and active communication strategies are key to a successful classroom visit. Describes one teacher's experience using visitor resources and offers advice on planning, preparing…