A tenet that appears to be accepted throughout the world is that effective teachers establish and maintain control over their students. This is an assertion that I challenge and deconstruct. In fact, for many teachers their well-intentioned efforts to establish and maintain control over students lead to their demise as teachers and for many more…

In this article Sarah Guth describes an online course for writing research articles in English she developed for engineering students at the University of Padua in Italy. Designed to overcome time-space constraints as well as to provide both linguistic and discipline-specific feedback, the course integrated peer editing as a key component of…

Given the lack of preparation incoming school district superintendents receive and the many challenges they face, this article reviews the approach of the few existing programs for new superintendents and describes the leadership development strategies that would be beneficial. With this background, the article presents the findings from an…

An increasing number of online graduate study programs require students to participate in collaborative work projects. And yet, educational research examining instructional strategies that facilitate learning in small groups online is limited. This article describes findings from a qualitative research project that investigated instructor…

Despite desegregation, and educational policies calling for increased inclusivity in higher education, students in South Africa generally continue to have homogenous social and learning experiences. This article reports on a collaborative student learning community across three disciplines at two universities. The e-learning project aimed to…

This paper reports on the results of an action research to explore the effectiveness of using cooperative learning strategies on students' academic achievement, their understanding of physics concepts and their motivation to learn in the physics classroom. The study involved a secondary four express physics class of 41 students in a neighbourhood…

One hundred thirty-seven students in 12th grade physics classes participated in a quasi-experimental study comparing the jigsaw classroom method of cooperative instruction with traditional direct instruction. While no differences were found between the two conditions for physics achievement gains, the results revealed differences in students'…

The Commissioner's annual report provides the Legislature with information reported by school districts concerning incidents of serious student misconduct grouped into the following four major reporting categories: violence, vandalism, weapons, and substance abuse. An analysis of trends yields indications of progress and of ongoing concern, and…

It is often stressed that the pedagogic models and approaches of Collaborative Online Learning support a learner's shared knowledge building within collaborating groups of learners, the individual construction of knowledge and the formation of an ongoing learning Community of Practice. Based on a recent case study of a Danish Master's programme,…

In 2005 many California Public Library staff members attended focus groups on the status of California Library Services Act (CLSA) cooperative system services, which were held throughout the state in late November and early December and focused on four general questions: (1) What works well now in cooperative library services? (2) What does not…

Helping novice teachers both improves their effectiveness and increases the likelihood they will remain in teaching. Ignoring the needs of novices is costly, in terms of both student achievement and teacher turnover. This brief discusses the strategies used by districts as they strive to offer high quality induction programs in an environment of…

This new edition updates and expands the previous volume and continues to reflect the concepts and the reasons behind learning and behavior problems of low achieving and disadvantaged students. Through the chapters, the author describes instructional levels and independent levels, emphasizing that success is produced by finding the place on the…

This chapter presents a basic overview about psychological theories that are foundational to cooperative learning: social psychology, developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, humanistic psychology, and motivational theories. In so doing, our purpose is to acquaint readers with aspects of theory and research that may be helpful to teachers…

This essay describes the development of an English coursebook that drew upon environmental education for the content. The book was designed to assist Indonesian university students in learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL). The three authors of the present essay served as the book's three editors. The authors of the individual lessons in the…

In an interdisciplinary collaboration between the Computer & Information Technology (CIT) and Nursing (NSG) Departments at the Middletown and Hamilton regional campuses of Miami University (of Ohio), student team members created a Web-based application to create Electronic Nursing Notes. Students from the two departments worked together to…