Notice to Charlottesville reporters:  Two U.Va. faculty who
are co-creators of the course will be facilitating class discussion
in Room 271A of Ruffner Hall during the national on-line symposium
described below.  For more information about the Charlottesville
site, call either Joanne Herbert at (804) 924-0757 or Mable Kinzie
at (804) 924-0835.

STUDENTS TACKLE ENVIRONMENTAL, EDUCATIONAL ISSUES DURING ON-LINE
SYMPOSIUM AT THE NATIONAL PRESS BUILDING 

	CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., April 19 -- Students at seven North
American universities will discuss a case that focuses on the
Chesapeake Bay during a live, interactive teleconference Tuesday,
April 23, at 7 p.m. in room 1155 of the National Press Building in
Washington, D.C.
	The symposium is the climax of the first case-based
education course to be conducted over the Internet.  Students in the
course, launched this spring by the University of Virginia's Curry
School of Education, have been analyzing cases of interdisciplinary
teaching and learning in elementary, middle and secondary schools.
	The students will consult with a panel comprised of Tracy
Hart, curriculum coordinator, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation; Mary
Dilworth, director of research, American Association of Colleges for
Teacher Education; and Laurie Regelbrugge, director of programs,
Hitachi Foundation.
	The multimedia cases "expose students to settings that would
not normally be available," said Robert McNergney, one of the U.Va.
faculty who designed the course. Throughout the three-credit course,
the 15 students at each university site have been posting their case
analyses on the Internet.  The case the students will be analyzing
Tuesday was developed by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
	Although still a relatively new idea in education, cases
have long been used successfully in law, medical and business
schools.  "Cases allow future educators to translate textbook
knowledge into solving real-life problems," said McNergney, a U.Va.
education professor who is developer of multi-media cases on such
topics as the widely diverse, multicultural classrooms in South
Africa and India.
	Students enrolled in the course are attending U.Va.; Hampton
University; the University of Minnesota, Duluth; the University of
Dayton; the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire; the University of
Northern Iowa and the University of Calgary in Canada.
	"The Internet postings have encouraged collegiality while
promoting problem-solving skills," said McNergney. "We designed the
course to give current and future teachers an appreciation for the
need to cooperate, and sometimes compete, across disciplines to
address the problems they face in a rapidly changing, culturally
diverse world."
	The course was developed with a $274,000 grant the Hitachi
Foundation awarded to U.Va.'s Curry School of Education.
	 The on-line discussion is made possible with the
cooperation of U.Va.'s Institute for Advanced Technologies in the
Humanities.
			###
	April 18, 1996
	FOR MORE INFORMATION about the Washington, D.C. symposium,
contact Robert McNergney at (804) 924-0749.  Television reporters
should contact our TV News Office at (804) 924-7550.