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Letter from the Co-president Dear IASCE Members, IASCE is pleased to bring you this issue of our member newsletter. This is our final newsletter for 2003 and, once again, our Newsletter presents a varied and thought-provoking compilation of recent work in the field. As I reviewed the abstracts, I was delighted to learn about studies with subjects ranging from very young children to graduate students. Some of these studies focus on content-area learning such as math, biology, physics, technology, family law, and second language acquisition. The breadth of content areas, coupled with the wide-ranging cultural contexts, reminds us that cooperative learning continues to be a vital and flexible tool for teaching and learning. Many studies develop the concepts of learning how to cooperate and the affective benefits of learning in cooperative contexts. These studies include a) one that examines how young children learn “togetherness”; b) an article that reminds readers that social-skill deficits have debilitating effects on a child’s daily life; and c) many studies that measure improved attitudes and confidence levels of students in subjects as varied as assessment, math, social studies, science, and technology. A third cluster of studies describes projects in teacher education. These studies, coupled with this issue’s contribution by IASCE Forum member Claudia Finkbeiner, remind us how critically important it is to educate teachers about the potential and power of cooperation for teaching and learning. As many of you know, teacher education for cooperative learning is a priority focus for IASCE. We are delighted to announce that the IASCE-supported publication Teaching Cooperative Learning: The Challenge for Teacher Education will be published in December 2003 by State University of New York Press. This volume, edited by IASCE Co-President Celeste Brody and former board members Elizabeth Cohen and Mara Sapon-Shevin, explores practices in teacher education programs that consciously teach and promote cooperative learning strategies. The ten chapters describe programs from ten institutions in three countries. These chapters, along with four analytical commentaries, provide support for educators who are undertaking the challenge of preparing teachers to implement sophisticated instructional strategies such as cooperative learning. We are very excited about this project, and we thank the IASCE membership for the support that has helped to make this publication possible. Please visit www.sunypress.edu to order a copy. In our last newsletter, Richard Dawson provided us with a dynamic description of our upcoming conference in Singapore. The local planning group (special thanks to IASCE board member Christine Lee), IASCE, and the National Institute of Education have been working tirelessly and creatively to make this conference a significant event for educators in Asia, for IASCE members and supporters everywhere, and for cooperative learning. In this issue of the newsletter, we provide you with more details of the conference (updates are available through www.iasce.net) and with the important reminder that proposals for presentations are due December 31st. We hope to hear from all of you in November and we look forward to seeing you in Singapore. Remember the dates—June 21-24, 2004 and the theme—Cooperation and Collaboration: Diversity of Practice, Cultural Contexts, and Creative Innovations. This conference marks IASCE’s 25th birthday and we plan to celebrate! Please help us “spread the word.” Cooperatively yours, Lynda
Lynda Baloche
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