Lesson involving an investigation to identify, from the clues provided, who committed a "burglary". The class group will have to organize itself to work out the answer, and the aim is to provide the students with insights about how they work as a group.

This document describes ways to implement structure in group projects for effective collaborative learning. Aspects of group membership, individual and group accountability, and grading group work are discussed.

In this product, students engage in processes/activities for collaboration and communication strategies. Students compare risks of courses of action confronting NASA's Deep Impact mission team. Students investigate information necessary to support arguments, quantitative risk analyses, debate, role play, persuasive writing/communication skills and group decision making procedures. This activity has been aligned to the national math and science standards as well as math and science standards for California, Texas and Maryland.

Open Educational Resources (OERs) are bringing a wealth of information, through various technologies, to all corners of the planet. This vital new movement has greatly impacted how our next generation now learns, but the promise is far grander. For the movement to reach it’s full potential, it must keep pace with technology. As Web 1.0 has moved on to the more interactive Web 2.0, so must the OER movement progress to the more interactive, student-centered, social learning environment of Learning 2.0. In this analysis I will share current examples of social learning in OERs. First, I will look at the trend of consumers becoming producers on websites such as Connexions and Rip Mix Learner. Second, I will examine the current and future role of education in social and interactive sites like Facebook and Wikipedia. Third, I will address how social learning is incorporated into OERs that are created for developing countries. And finally, I will discuss future trends and how OERs can, and must, continue to drive learners to interact and connect when they are in disparate areas.

This module will introduce primary teachers in Trinidad and Tobago to the possibilities that digital storytelling holds for improved Literacy in primary school classrooms. With the increasing use of computer technology in teacher education and with both teachers and students as storytellers whose lives are filled with stories that are there for the telling, this initiative will enhance both creativity and Literacy among learners in an exciting way.

This is a two-month team research project for 9-10th graders that uses Library of Congress resources to focus on long-term change in U.S. history. Students gather, analyze, and evaluate primary and secondary sources; develop their own conclusions; and refine their writing.

This module engages students in the use of a clean room and in the planning of assembly of solar collector wafers for the Genesis space mission. They will work in production design teams to explore how the Genesis spacecraft will collect bulk solar wind with the collector arrays and learn to work as a team in a restrictive environment. The module includes several activities with accompanying video clips. Downloadable, printable teachers' guides and students pages are provided for each one.

This module developed for classes in Engineering and Computer Ethics at UPRM employs a value/virtue approach to encourage students to reflect on the ethical issues and problems that arise in group or team work. Throughout the class, students are given gr

It is important to learn from classroom discussions, both for pupils and teachers. This unit will help you, as a teacher, to evaluate such discussions in order to help students develop their understanding and use of spoken language. The ability to use language as a tool for constructing and sharing knowledge is applicable across the whole curriculum.

Global warming has become one of the most pressing issues facing the United States and the world. The following webquest, based on the Koshland Science Museum's exhibit Global Warming: Facts and Our Future, was designed primarily to introduce high school and middle school students to the complicated issues surrounding global warming and climate change. Through participating in a fictitious scenario, students will take an active role in determining how and why climate is changing and how humans may have contributed to these changes. Students become climate scientists, policy analysts, economists, energy experts, and urban planners as they learn about climate science, environmental impacts, policy initiatives, and renewable energy choices. Upon completion of their individual tasks, student teams present their findings and make recommendations that address the situation.

Lesson plan involving short experiential exercises during which the students, working in pairs, learn the skills involved in listening.

After reading the story "Dear Mr. Henshaw" by Beverly Cleary, students will build an alarm system for something in the classroom, as the main character Leigh does to protect his lunchbox from thieves. Students will learn about alarms and use their creativity to create an alarm system to protect their lockers, desk, or classroom door. Note: this activity can also be done without reading "Dear Mr. Henshaw".

The class begins with a warm-up game using a soft ball or bean bag. The main part of the class involves each student working alone listing and decorating a "patch" showing their positive qualities.

Lesson involving examination of the qualities students value in other people. Includes a group activity where they write positive messages about their classmates on posters.

The following poster evaluation forms can help you to prepare and evaluate your posters.

For the last century, precepts of scientific management and administrative rationality have concentrated power in the hands of technical specialists, which in recent decades has contributed to widespread disenfranchisement and discontent among stakeholders in natural resources cases. In this seminar we examine the limitations of scientific management as a model both for governance and for gathering and using information, and describe alternative methods for informing and organizing decision-making processes. We feature cases involving large carnivores in the West (mountain lions and grizzly bears), Northeast coastal fisheries, and adaptive management of the Colorado River. There will be nightly readings and a short written assignment.

This course examines joint fact-finding within the context of adaptive and ecosystem-based management. Challenges and obstacles to collaborative approaches for deciding environmental and natural resource policy and the institutional changes within federal agencies necessary to utilize joint fact-finding as a means to link science and societal decisions are discussed and reviewed with scientists and managers. Senior-level federal policymakers participate

SIMply Praire is a student research project that has the potential to link classrooms in areas where the prairie once flourished. Students develop research questions with a special focus on the prairie plant population. To answer these questions students conduct a research study collecting data from a prairie plot and comparing their data with data from other native and/or reconstructed prairie plots. Students publish their data and their research study on the SIMply Prairie Website. As the project matures we expect classes will collaborate with other classes on joint research studies. The student data will be available to research scientists who encourage students to take an active interest in preserving and recreating native North American prairies.

In this multidisciplinary, inquiry-based project students prepare a plan and give a persuasive oral presentation to create a reconstructed prairie based on research. Teachers can use this unit with their students to justify enlarging or keeping an existing prairie. This project can serve as the organizing structure for prairie study where materials from units such as The Prairie – Our Heartland become research materials. It can be used in conjunction with the unit which is taught best in the fall, or perhaps during the spring planting season after students have completed the primary unit of study. The open-ended problem lends itself to a variety of solutions and is appropriate for students at all ability levels.