This study documented how young children talked about story in a supportive environment. Participants were 22 kindergartners and their teacher, who engaged in extended talk about story after listening to a picture book or chapter from a novel. Data collected included transcripts of videotaped conversations during large- and small-group discussions…

A unit used in an Australian school to teach English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students how to write a discussion is described. The 3-week unit was planned and implemented jointly by an ESL resource teacher, class teacher, and teacher librarian. The class was divided into three heterogeneous groups, two of which were observed for this study and…

This paper discusses the use of focus groups to investigate criteria used by college students to determine their satisfaction with higher education, and presents the results of a pilot study. It reviews research on the use of focus groups, discusses the development of a focus group guide for the current study, and examines problems associated with…

This paper presents the design, implementation, and evaluation of an online student-facilitated health care communication electronic conference as part of a requirement of a health care communication course taught at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis in Spring 1995. Discussion focuses on the use of Internet components in…

An ethnographic study examined the nature of social and cultural contexts as they shaped literary practices in a combined fifth/sixth-grade classroom. Research questions focused on the meanings given to the reading and discussion of literature within the embedded contexts of classroom and community. The five focal students for the study differed…

This paper describes a method of reflective practice called "critical incident" which was used to examine teacher trainees' educational assumptions. A qualitative case study of one fifth-year teaching intern (Amy) at the University of Tennessee represents the experience of seven other master's level students already practicing within the…

A study explored how small groups of student readers interacted in a classroom over time to interpret short stories assigned by a teacher who functioned as participant/observer. The study focused on multiple readers in actual classroom situations to consider the relationship between the social and academic elements observable during day-to-day…

This guide and accompanying videotape are the fifth and final in a series that present full lessons and interviews with the instructors who created the lessons. Intended as starting points to stimulate thinking about a comprehensive approach to art education, these instructors discuss how they developed their lessons and how this approach has…

In 1996, Atlanta Metropolitan College (Georgia) participated in the American Association of Community Colleges' Exploring America's Communities project, which works to strengthen the teaching and learning of American history, literature, and culture at U.S. community colleges. In an attempt to enhance the college's curriculum with American…

This booklet is part of a series of units designed to help students take and defend a position on public issues. The unit presented here explores questions about when people should challenge authority through a study of the Civil War and slavery. The booklet is divided into six sections. The first and last are an introduction and review…

The Listening Partners project examined rural mothers' development of a sense of the power of their own minds and voices and the relationship between this sense of power and mothers' parenting strategies and their children's development. Two cohorts of 60 women from a rural, impoverished region of Vermont participated in the program. Half the…

The research project described in this paper was conducted for three purposes: (1) to identify the program evaluation needs of secondary vocational educators in Wisconsin; (2) to identify those components of the state's previous evaluation system that educators wanted to keep; and (3) to develop a conceptual framework for revising Wisconsin's…

Noting that the literature of the Vietnam War can have a powerful impact on students, this paper discusses why such literature should be taught, what types of literature should be taught, and how teachers might go about teaching some of the literature. The paper begins by presenting numerous student responses to various novels on the Vietnam War,…

These classroom guides, designed to accompany the daily Cable News Network (CNN) Newsroom broadcasts for the month of November, provide program rundowns, suggestions for class activities and discussion, student handouts, and a list of related news terms. Topics include: Iraq refuses to cooperate with United Nations weapons inspectors, expansion of…

The materials in this curriculum sample are written as an English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) lesson for immigrants and refugees, designed to begin discussion of family violence. An introductory section outlines issues related to discussion of family violence in the classroom setting, including the importance of opening lines of communication and…