Resources

In recent years, learning communities - a curricular instructional innovation that integrates different facets of the undergraduate experience to enhance and enrich learning - have become the most promising new strategy for promoting student success and satisfaction in college. Learning communities give students the chance to deepen and diversify their education, connect with others who share their interests, and actively participate in the educational process.. "Creating Learning Communities is a guide to the essentials of this rewarding new program area, including how to design, fund, staff, manage, and integrate learning communities into different campuses. Drawing from their own experience, as well as from experiences of campuses around the country, Nancy S. Shapiro and Jodi H. Levine provide both a sound theoretical rationale and nuts-and-bolts advice on the logistical, administrative, financial, and turf-related issues of creating an effective learning community. And perhaps most important, they show how to ensure that such communities embody and fulfill the objectives for which they were established. (From the Publisher)

Each selected essay is introduced by its original author who updates the chapter topic. Drawing on examples from their own experiences, the authors provide practical classroom strategies such as readings and resources, writing assignments, classroom exercises, and guidance for using journals, multimedia workshops, and new technologies. (From the Publisher)

Most six-year-olds can't wait to go to school on that first day in September. It's a sign of coming of age. They get to go to school like the big kids. For an alarmingly large number of these children, however, boredom, anxiety, and fear of learning quickly set in. This happens because societies build schools that achieve much less than they promise, are frustrating for students, and generally fail to help children become adults who can think for themselves. The development of flexible, inquiring minds has rarely been the primary consideration in the design of educational systems. Making students into proper members of society has usually been of much greater concern than developing students who are creative thinkers. Today's schools are organized around yesterday's ideas, needs, and resources. The purpose of this volume is to raise consciousness about the changes needed in the educational system. It is concerned with what is wrong with the educational system and how to improve it. It presents a pragmatic view of what education could be through the use of computer technology — technology permitting us to pursue the radical notion that children must be allowed to guide their own education because interested learners learn more. Children can and will become voracious learners if they are in charge of their own education. This does not mean letting them play video games all day, but it does mean allowing them to pursue the intellectual goals that interest them, rather than being force-fed knowledge according to someone else's schedule. The school system must face the responsibility of creating learning environments that are so much fun that children cannot wait to get up in the morning and go to school. This volume describes the progress being made at The Institute for the Learning Sciences using computers to provide motivating environments for learning — environments that enable students to explore new worlds, and learn things by doing them. This technology will allow society to support what is one of the most important parts of a good educational system: the cultivation of individual initiative in students. This text documents the authors' work from the cognitive psychology which underlies it on through to guided tours of a number of the software learning environments they've developed. (From the Publisher)

Drawing on the myth of Mentor as companion and advisor to Odysseus, preeminent educational mentoring expert Laurent A. Daloz uses the metaphor of the mythic journey as a way of making sense of life's changes. He looks closely at what good teachers and mentors actually do, and inspires post-secondary educators to think of their work in fresh new ways. This classic, beautifully written work has been newly updated and is available for the first time in paperback. (From the Publisher)

This is a collection of case studies written by professor and by graduate students teaching in the field of religion. Each case highlights one or more teaching problem (or possibility), some facet of the mystery of teaching (and learning to teach) at the college level. Each case is intended to spark conversations about a particular collegiate teaching situation. (From the Publisher)

Journal Issue. Full text is available online.