Although e-learning can offer interactive and engaging learning experiences, the creative ideas that are necessary to create such environments are not always easy to come up with when designing, developing, or teaching e-learning courses. E-learning activities use online technologies such as chat rooms, discussion boards, or email to facilitate…

Suggestions to help create and maintain effective classroom discussion are offered, and strengths and weaknesses of this approach are identified. Discussion is defined as a variety of teaching approaches that focus on two-way, spoken communication between the teacher and the students, and more importantly among the students themselves (e.g.,…

Integration of the recent scholarship on women and minorities into the undergraduate curriculum is discussed in 18 articles. Attention is directed to case studies, theoretical issues, models for institutional change, faculty development, syllabus redesign guidelines, and a bibliography arranged by academic fields. Article titles and authors…

Contrast is one of the great principles of any art--two things that are different are put side-by-side so that both can be seen for comparison. This paper considers initially two kinds of contrast in phonics: the sounds of the five short vowels (a e i o u); and the sequence from left-to-right in sounding out the letters. The paper states that…

The articles in this collection are intended to present a detailed picture of the work of Donald Graves and his associates at the Writing Process Laboratory (WPL) of the University of New Hampshire. The introduction provides an overview of the work of Graves and examines his views of beginning writing, writing conferences, revision, audience, and…

A description is provided of the development of "The History of the Modern World," a one-semester course offered at Bronx Community College (BCC), which was designed to survey the major aspects of the significant events that are part of the political, economic, social and cultural heritage that have shaped the course of world history since 1850.…

As more schools connect to the Internet and the quality of connection improves, teachers might want to do something other than look up the "CD in the sky." One option might be to bring an online guest into the classroom. Online technology enables teachers to integrate the experience of interacting with a guest into their curriculum activities.…

Intended to help students from language-minority backgrounds develop literacy in English, this book identifies and answers the major questions surrounding reading instruction for English as a second language (ESL) students. Specifically, the book reviews and synthesizes what is known about background issues related to the education of ESL…

This guide accompanies one of a pair of videocases depicting educational life in Deming, New Mexico. The videocase includes 28 minutes of unstaged but edited videotape footage of teaching and learning in and around junior high and mid-high schools in Deming. The first section of the guide, "Teaching Note" (Todd Kent) contains a…