Children's daily experiences in classrooms can help them understand how to be responsible citizens in a classroom community. Educating children about democracy involves two key elements on which teachers should capitalize: (1) children's curiosity and (2) their experiential learning. To develop responsible citizenship, families and teachers need…

This article focuses on the use of problem-based learning in high school foods and nutrition classes. Problem-based learning, an instructional approach that promotes active learning, is the elaboration of knowledge that occurs through discussion, answering questions, peer teaching, and critiquing. Students are confronted with a simulated or real…

Blogs and the whole gamut of interactive, Web-based tools are redefining how we connect with people and content on the Internet. This is the widely discussed next step known as Web 2.0, a truly revolutionary concept in which pervasive interactivity, where multitudes of users online actively exchange or contribute content, will transform the very…

We describe research carried out with a prospective secondary biology teacher, whom we shall call Miguel. The teacher's conceptions of the nature of science and of learning and teaching science were analyzed and compared with his classroom practice when teaching science lessons. The data gathering procedures were interviews analyzed by means of…

This paper describes the development of augmented group awareness tools that take mutual user ratings of their online discussion contributions as input, aggregate these data, and visually feed these data back to the members in real time, thereby informing participants about how the group as a whole perceives their contributions. A specific group…

This mixed method case study provides insights about how the professional development of middle school teachers is facilitated through their participation in content-focused online communities of practice. A key finding from this research reveals that the online community provided teachers with enhanced opportunities to share ideas, to discuss…

This article focuses on the special role of students as discussion leaders and their engagement in the facilitation of online discussion in relation to the teacher's role. The methodology combined quantitative data of students' frequency behaviour with qualitative analysis of students' individual online contributions. Each contribution was…

As some educators try to eradicate homophobia among their students, the literature on how classroom interventions lessen homophobia has netted inconsistent results. Most studies have found modest curriculum effects, while some have not. In addressing these inconsistencies, this study investigates the way some mitigating factors may either augment…

We present the results of a literature review of studies on teaching strategies for moral education in secondary schools (1995-2003). The majority of the studies focus on the "what" and "why", i.e. the objectives, of curriculum-oriented moral education. Attention to the instructional formats for enhancing the prosocial and moral development of…

To promote student engagement, professors must actively seek to create the conditions that foster engagement. Chickering and Gamson (1987) suggest that good practices in undergraduate education are ones that: encourage student-faculty contact, develop reciprocity and cooperation among students, encourage active learning, provide students with…

A study investigated how students of English as a second language (ESL) improved their use of learning strategies through awareness-raising in group interviews and informal training. Subjects were 68 Taiwanese university students in two freshman English classes. Subjects responded to an English learning strategy questionnaire in the beginning and…

The science discourse of young children is a means by which children can pose and try to answer difficult questions about their world. This paper describes through excerpts from transcripts of audiotapes and fieldnotes of science talks, how young children talk about science, and how they use metaphors and analogies to develop theories about…

Written by teachers for teachers, this book on language in the classroom is concerned with the various ways children are taught and the various ways they learn in response to that teaching. Chapter 1 analyzes the prewriting discussion of a group of 16 year olds to provide a model of language in use, and suggests four factors affecting the quality…

This consultation was structured to provide a forum for participants to grapple with issues surrounding ethnic group identity, ethnic studies, intergroup conflict, and essential new roles for schools, colleges and community groups; and to chart new courses of action for New Jersey. The document includes a brief summary of the program. The morning…

Describes a school-university collaborative project in which elementary students paired with preservice teachers to discuss children's books electronically. The project introduced preservice teachers to Web-based discussions and provided opportunities for them to become more familiar with how elementary students respond to books. Samples of…