Discusses the increasing adoption of the learning community ideal among community colleges, describing the leaders and organizations who have contributed to this movement. Reviews five indicators of a learning community: effective learning, professional development plans for every employee, constant reevaluation of missions and values,…

Presents classroom science activities to illustrate concepts of inertia, linear momentum, and friction. Students or teachers conduct races down a slope, using cans containing soups varying in mass, mass distribution, and viscosity. Students predict outcomes, compare speeds, and identify variables affecting the results. (KDFB)

Professional development schools serve both novice and experienced teachers' needs by combining teacher education with professional development and school-restructuring efforts. Such schools are creating new opportunities for learning by teaching, doing, and collaborating. This article describes the University of Southern Maine's one-year,…

Recounts how Foxfire grew from a high school magazine to a national program that helps others to teach in a student-centered way. The Foxfire approach has proven successful regardless of age and grade level, across the curriculum, and in the most traditional school settings. Describes various workshops, courses, and programs that Foxfire has…

Discusses how the John Paul II Cultural Center is an example of how Catholic educators have begun taking advantage of new teaching resources to help students understand their personal faith. Center contains hands-on and interactive journey to learning about Catholicism and the faiths of other people. (MZ)

Describes student historical research and student classroom presentation of the results of that research. Feedback from the student surveys verifies that active-learning mathematics history can motivate students to learn mathematics. (Author/DDR)

The service-learning movement is widespread in European international schools. The most comprehensive initiative presented at two recent European Council of Independent Schools conferences was the Creativity, Activity, Service (CAS) course that students must pass to graduate from International Baccalaureate schools. Exemplary programs in England…

Tells stories of children in their first year of school (mostly age five) who were using calculators for the first time. Implications are that children's thinking moves from a rough to a more thorough and refined grasp of the whole. Learning mathematics with calculators is more like the learning of language than traditional classroom mathematics.…

Presents active learning strategies that utilize visual images, in particular photographs, to promote learning in geography. Explains that the six activities focus on Vietnam. Uses the photographs to encourage students to engage with the images to promote better observation skills. (CMK)

Recounts the implementation of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) in a cooperative learning environment by a teacher in a technical- and professional-related discipline. States that PBL frees students from restrictions and forces the instructor to release control of the learning process. Sample worksheets appended. (Contains 11 references.) (AUTH/NB)

An English-as-second-language teacher feels that everyone has creativity and imagination, and the teacher's role is to nurture those qualities. Drawing on the Foxfire core practices, she acknowledges and reinforces those moments when learners reveal their own unique insights into learning, and she facilitates exploratory and innovative thinking…

States that in early 20th century Germany, elementary school teachers were seen as low-level civil servants and their teaching methodology was dictated to them by the state. Explains that to free themselves from political and religious authorities, school teachers began advocating a child-centered, active-learning approach based upon recent…

Eleven high schools with advanced technology programs were examined for their use of technology, particularly the Internet, in classrooms and school libraries. Discussion includes teacher attitudes, teacher training, local politics and the school environment, the power of the individual to enhance or inhibit success, guidelines and ethics, and…

A study examined the attitudes of 352 pharmacology students from eight different semesters toward computer-based classroom learning. Significant differences were found between semesters. Results showed a general trend toward more open-minded attitudes toward active learning and greater acceptance of computer use in that context. (MSE)

Addresses two issues confronting teachers who use theme immersion in their classrooms: integration of content through theme, and inquiry-based curriculum. Discusses the challenge and justification for each issue. Notes that inquiry teaching means constantly searching for better ways to support children' s own inquiry processes. (BAC)