Young children are fascinated by how things "work." They are at a stage of development where they want to experiment with the many ways to use an object or take things apart and put them back together. In the process of exploring tools and machines, children use the scientific method and problem-solving skills. They observe how things work, wonder…

We designed a cooperative learning classroom activity to enhance students' ability to understand psychological disorders and distinguish among anxiety, mood, and psychotic disorders. We employed a group interviewing approach with the instructor (or a graduate student) serving as the pseudo-client. Students interacted with a pseudo-client to arrive…

In this article, the author introduces innovative activities designed for students to eliminate the teacher's stress of the last days of school. As an elementary teacher for many years and now a substitute teacher, the author states that she had always dreaded the last week of school. To minimize stress and to keep the children learning, she uses…

The author describes a classroom exercise that introduces the Socialist Calculation Debate (SCD) to undergraduate economics students. The SCD concerns an issue that remains one of the most consequential of the 20th century--the belief in the superiority of socialism and central planning over capitalism and the free market. The exercise presents…

Teaching students about the former Yugoslavia can be difficult--so much diversity, so much conflict, so much culture. Yet, teaching students about the country matters for two reasons: (1) because the former Yugoslavia is an essential part of understanding World War I and the reemergence of nationalism in a postwar era, and (2) because a study of…

An English teacher presents a unit on violence in young adult literature where she starts by helping students understand violence and its origins. The students express strong, informed opinions about "Shattering Glass" by Gail Giles through activities and class discussion to recognize the need to read and view images of violence from an…

Discusses the developmental and academic benefits of basic music skills and rhythmic competence, and considers ways to incorporate this practice into early childhood class activities. Includes sample activities to build teacher and student confidence and competence in rhythm and singing. (JPB)

Teaching Shakespeare to undergraduates can be difficult under the best of circumstances. The densely figurative language can be very difficult to sift through for students unfamiliar with anything but naturalistic speech. When this is further compounded by the students' resistance to reading anything longer than several paragraphs, teachers find…

This paper, which is particularly centered on the student's learning process, is the first half of a detailed study of selectivity in Whitehead?s philosophy of education. Here, by setting forth the analogy between the creative process exhibited in Whitehead's Theory of Prehensions and the learning process through an interpretation of the term,…

The need to incorporate business and economic data into curricula has been a driver of technology adoption in business schools. Web-based resources and professional data services, such as Reuters and Bloomberg, are being increasingly adopted by business programs to meet this need. There are clear trade-offs to adopting either technological…

This narrative provides an account of one teacher's use of a minimal, real-world text--a Fantale lollie wrapper--in her classroom as a means of motivating Year 7 students to write concisely and imaginatively. It discusses the success of this strategy and the way in which information technology was utilised in the production of facsimile texts.…

The author provides practical ways to engage students in active learning in the classroom.

A school's curriculum can appear unrelated, fragmented, or somewhat disjointed if not done with an end in mind. This fragmentation or disjointedness often affects students and their views of the experiences being given them in school. Various curriculum-integration techniques, however, can be used to help make the big picture more understandable…

In this article, the author shares how she used journal exercises to unify her classroom. Students used cheap spiral notebooks and followed a few very basic rules: (1) Start out by writing for 5 minutes, increasing to 15 or more; (2) Read the entry to the class only if you want to; and (3) Use the given topic or write whatever is on your mind.…

One of the most consistent regularities observers would see in schools is the grouping of children by grade. The authors' work with schoolchildren causes them to ask, what is a grade beyond a group of children at a particular age? In this article, the authors share a glimpse of an activity involving inference and logical necessity that they…