Describes a multicultural unit for elementary students. Children select a folk art or craft and become experts, learn the craft, research the craft, pass the craft on, and review their discoveries. The unit culminates in a folk arts festival at which students demonstrate their craft to classmates, teachers, and guests. (SM)

Provides insights for college-level teachers beginning their tasks of directing student research. (PR)

Pestalozzi's conception of effective learning arising from personal observation and experience can be applied to the education of diverse students. His notions of empathy and caring, understanding the child's own culture, and equality without conformity are cornerstones of multicultural education. (SK)

Focuses on identifying the educational effects of "activity oriented" instructional techniques. Examines which instructional methods produce enhanced learning and comprehension. Discusses the problem of learning "sorting algorithms," a major topic in every Computer Science curriculum. Presents a low-tech, hands-on teaching method for sorting…

Discusses use of field trips to enhance early childhood education. Suggests that children gain from group trips when the trip site is of interest to them, the children are prepared for the journey, and they can apply their experience upon return. Successful trips allow children to actively seek and find information, and to discern relationships…

The author, formerly a principal, examines her experience as a research subject to demonstrate the harmful potential of qualitative research that tries too hard to "emancipate" participants. She herself became a casualty of invasive inquiry, defined as a violation of self. Personalization of study findings is ill-advised. (24 references)…

A 31-year-old student of Western Governors University (WGU) plans to earn a bachelor's degree (without attending a class), by using the Internet or otherwise by teaching himself. Aside from distance-learning opportunities, WGU offers the option of standardized tests and independent projects to fulfill degree requirements. The student in question…

Discusses the motivation behind Interactive Contextual Learning Environments (ICLE). An ICLE places the learner into a virtual learning environment that is active rather than passive. Consequently, the learner is encouraged to learn by doing, which the research indicates yields a 90% retention rate among learners. (Author)

Reports on two surveys conducted at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNCCH) with employers of UNCCH interns. For-profit employers who recruit undergraduate interns responded that career fairs and on-campus recruiting were most effective, whereas nonprofits reported listing with career services and advertising in internships guides as…

Backbone is a British organization that seeks to expand access to outdoor experiences for all people, particularly women, youth, and minority groups. It offers a practical and experiential program to develop trainers in black communities, which consists of three strands: personal development experience, professional and leadership skills, and…

Describes an adventure activity in which a group achieved a seemingly impossible goal by changing the way it imagined the task. Discusses the sequence of steps in metaphor development that led to the triggering of a generative metaphor: a new image of the task that allowed reframing of the problem and its eventual solution. (SV)

Assesses informal learning in experiential settings. Elementary teachers (n=20) from public and private schools participated in an on-site seminar involving experiential learning in science centers, a wildlife refuge, and a zoological sanctuary. The significance of instruction provided by guides, types of exhibits, and the use of informational…

Observes that a number of environmental educators view environmental pedagogics oriented to ecological action as a problematic trend toward indoctrination. Tries to dispel these misgivings, and argues that the environmental action approach has other shortcomings, especially if conceptualized as individual apolitical action. (DSK)

Argues that historic sites permit students literally to make a connection to earlier people that cannot be duplicated in a classroom. Describes how visits to Curtin Village (Pennsylvania), a Juniata River canal (Pennsylvania), the Gettysburg battlefield (Pennsylvania), and the Antietam battlefield (Maryland) are incorporated into a study of U. S.…

Discusses aspects of professional education for individuals working in caring roles, particularly with reference to dementia. Describes three experiential learning exercises together with the opportunities they provide for moral development. Makes suggestions about the moral demands of care work and draws inferences for the practice of moral…