Downloads & Free Reading Options - Results

In order to integrate ideas and information creatively, to motivate students and activate their thinking, we have used in Biology classes a series of active methods, among which the methods of critical thinking, which had very good results. Still, in the case of some intuitive, abstract, more difficult topics, such as the cell structure, microscopic processes, the transmission of hereditary features etc., the methods of critical thinking can be insufficient, because they stimulate students' imagination, whereas this does not always conform to real, correct representations. We wanted to compensate this weakness through the integration of the model method in the strategies of active learning. By using teaching materials like models that provide information in more ways (visual, tactile, auditory), the students can better infer phenomena, processes that happen at an intangible, everyday life (cellular division, processes inside the living organisms etc.). In this study we shall present the results obtained by students in the Biology class after introducing the model-technique in the active learning strategies, results which have proved to be superior to those obtained by traditional methods.

1Boy Crusoe

By Allan Eric

Also published as" A Yankee Crusoe" . A 15 year old hard working and studious farm boy finds the lure of adventure on the seas as a merchant seaman more than he can resist. This is his story. " I was born in a little town in the State of Maine, near the close of the Civil War. My boyhood life did not differ materially from that of the average farmer's son in the remote country districts of New England--except, perhaps, that I read more and thought more. Hard work on the rugged soil, two terms each year in the little yellow country schoolhouse, a day's fishing now and then filled the early years of my life full to over-flowing. " What he gets is enough excitement and adventure to overflow his wildest dreams. How he experiences disaster and uses his wits and knowledge to overcome every problem makes for a great read. - Summary by Phil Chenevert