The new Readers Theatre series features scripts for students in grades 4-8. These original scripts are written for the specific purpose of teaching literary genre. Each book is composed of 24-28 scripts, each of which will be keyed to published books, plays, poems or stories in that genre, encouraging students to read the originals in order to…

In an age of rising obesity rates, more students are getting fit in school with the help of the video game series Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) and similar games. Some educators caution that while the trend is positive overall, technology should only supplement--not replace--traditional physical activity, such as running, aerobics, and other…

This article reports the potential of online role-playing games to be a powerful tool for English as a second language (ESL) learning. When Professor Edd Schneider and game designer Kai Zheng suggested to attendees gathered in San Francisco last spring for the annual Game Developers Conference that massively multiplayer online role-playing games,…

A review is offered of Hong Kong's current education reform that sites a key role for "creativity." This key role leads us to ask "Creativity in the Hong Kong Classroom: what is the contextual practice?" To address this question 27 Primary classroom teachers across three subject areas were observed and rated using the Classroom…

Our recent project has a comparative perspective: it compares selected good practices of integration of ethnic minority children among three European countries (Italy, Switzerland and Hungary). The project examines several key areas of integration: governmental policies, NGO practices and most importantly good practices that might be transferable,…

Creative teaching, which involves creating innovative lessons, games, materials, and assignments to challenge students, can be stimulated in teacher education students by stirring up their thinking and encouraging them to explore different paths. Two thematic concepts which underlie creative teaching are "reflective teaching" which…

This booklet provides classroom activities related to diversity. The activities are designed to help teachers disrupt their schools' dependency on the textbook, the lecture, and the search for the one and only answer, offering a way to introduce difference and acceptance and to enhance new dialogues with students and colleagues. The booklet offers…

Proposing that Socratic seminars can lead to true educational reform, this article examines the use of these seminars to enlarge elementary and secondary students' understanding of ideas and to encourage instruction that is not restricted by established syllabi, courses, or examinations. Socratic discussion is lacking in most classrooms but should…

Briefly summarized in this literature review are definitions of curriculum, creativity, the creative process, the creative teacher, creative teaching, and creative adults and children. The curriculum as it relates to creativity and pertinent research on curriculum structure are also described. Lists of 9 obstacles to creativity and 12 aids to…

During the past 50 years, outdoor education as a curriculum development has progressed from a few pilot projects to some fairly comprehensive programs in the United States and Canada. In the process, outdoor education programs have lost the relaxed pace of earlier programs, flexibility in planning and scheduling, and total involvement of the…

The fatal flaw of competency/performance-based teacher education (C/PBTE) is the lack of empirical knowledge on teacher behavior as it relates to pupil outcomes. Competencies identified have been based on reason, logic, and experience--all insufficient without empirical evidence. It seems that many accusations against C/PBTE are justified, and it…

This catalog, addressed to teachers of writing in the elementary and high schools, consists of (1) suggested assignments to stimulate creative writing, (2) descriptions of materials and assignment references that might be used with the assignments, (3) a list of books and magazines containing anthologies of writing by young people, and (4)…

A persistent problem confronting the teacher of the culturally different child is the need for finding learning materials that the child can relate to and utilize in his learning situation. The increasing availability of mass-produced learning materials for these children, although helpful, has not solved the problem of providing socioeconomically…