Our community university, located along the Texas-Mexico border, in cooperation with a local elementary school campus is involved in a project focused on working with elementary students and their families in relation to early literacy development. The project provides preservice teachers with a structured opportunity to work directly with Latino…

In the early days of online courses, a widespread production model was to provide faculty members with release time and/or stipends in return for developing and delivering their own courses. These early online courses were developed by a cadre of faculty "zealots" who believed that information technology could transform learning. Such faculty…

Science and engineering students' involvement in practical work contributes to the development of their understanding of the concepts and processes of science. The Practical Experimentation by Accessible Remote Learning (PEARL) project aimed to develop a system to enable students to conduct real-world experiments at a distance using a computer. We…

The purpose of this study was to assess the level of parental satisfaction with services of a child development center and to evaluate the physician-parent dimensions of communication. A total of 90 parents to children with disability ranging in age from 6 months to 6 years participated in the study (84% response rate). Attitudes regarding…

In this article, we draw on research within a large project on parental involvement in mathematics education in working-class Latino communities. Our research is situated within a sociocultural framework and, in particular, the concept of funds of knowledge. We also draw on research on parental involvement in education, particularly that which…

In this article, the authors describe a graduate course based on a cooperative learning strategy involving structured group interaction. The authors team-taught a semester-long course in which student groups worked on a consulting project requiring interaction between three distinct teams--the student group, a faculty team, and a team of field…

Given today's global work environment, business education should prepare learners not only for technical excellence but also for effective collaboration. In this article, the author describes how collaborative activities--ranging from exams to projects and role playing--enhance the understanding of operations management (OM). The author found that…

The gradual, ongoing transformation of a large general education astronomy class is presented. Emphasis is on student reaction to and academic impact of changes in the teaching/learning environment introduced over a five-year period. In-class, cooperative, and small group exercises are discussed, along with web-based materials and Just-in-Time…

The vast majority of complex engineering tasks in today's business world are completed using a team-oriented approach. Therefore, teaching collaborative skills to university students can be viewed as a practical means of enhancing their employability. With these goals in mind, the authors developed a network environment that helps Taiwanese…

The problem addressed in the study was whether 10-year-old and 11-year-old children, collaborating within a computer-supported classroom, learned an explanation-driven process of inquiry that had characteristics of the progressive nature of scientific inquiry. The technical infrastructure for the study was provided by the Computer-Supported…

In this special issue, we have sought to explore the strategies, programming, interventions, and policy decisions that institutions and communities use collaboratively as they attempt to cope with this educational crisis. Some of those strategies involve working with nontraditional constituencies such as parents or involve nontraditional and…

During oral exams at the German distance learning university, we noticed that students fear that they will be faced with questions that they have not anticipated. In our opinion, this is mainly because students have no chance to train and thereby gather positive experiences with exam situations as they are distributed all over Germany and thus it…

Fostering undergraduate research has increasingly become a focus of four-year institutions. Thus, given the maturity and capabilities of a substantial number of community college students, Virginia Community College System (VCCS) faculty can help students prepare for the baccalaureate by providing them with opportunities for actual research. With…

Research suggests that the solitary learner's learning preferences might be a mismatch with collaborative instructional settings. A question is therefore posed: "In online learning environments that require collaboration, how do solitary learners experience their own learning?" It is important to answer this question to understand and…

One hundred and sixty eight students from five 11th grade chemistry classes participated for 2 months in an experiment that examined the effects of the Group Investigation (GI) method of cooperative learning on students' achievement, motivation and perceptions of their experience. An achievement test and Harter's Motivation Questionnaire were…