FUTURE TEACHERS USE THE INTERNET IN NEW COURSE
 TO GAIN PRACTICE IN SOLVING CLASSROOM PROBLEMS

	CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., Jan. 17 --Students at seven
universities will learn how to teach in culturally diverse
classrooms through the first case-based education course to be
offered on the Internet.
	In December The Hitachi Foundation awarded a $274,000 grant
to the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education to develop
a course in interdisciplinary teaching and learning in elementary,
middle and secondary schools.  The three-year grant allows a team of
Curry School faculty and graduate students to develop multi-media
cases that will be analyzed by current and prospective teachers.
	The cases will portray "slices of real life in the classroom
and expose students to settings that would not normally be
available," said Joanne M. Herbert, one of the U.Va. faculty
designing the course. Trained instructors at the university sites
will lead discussion about the cases, pointing out the perspectives
of those described in the scenarios.  The 15 students at each site
will post their analyzes of cases on the Internet.
	The three-credit course is being offered at 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 will encourage collegiality and
promote problem-solving skills," said Herbert, who will lead the
first class meeting Tuesday, Jan. 23, at 7 p.m. in room 209 in
Ruffner Hall.  During that class, photographs of students and
instructors will be taken so that images can be shared online -- a
technique that will encourage a sense of personal communication.
	Near the end of the course students will compete in teams to
analyze a case.  They will provide their analyzes to a panel of
judges, who are noted education professionals, and the winning team
will be announced via the Internet. 
	 The case-based course and competition is an outgrowth of
the Virtual Case Competition, pioneered by U.Va.'s Commonwealth
Center for the Education of Teachers.  In that 1995 electronic
competition, teams of students from six universities attempted to
solve a case raising tough discipline questions.
	"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 the
rapidly changing, culturally diverse world," Herbert said.
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January 16, 1996
	For more information, contact Joanne Herbert at (804)
924-0757 or via jmh8j@virginia.edu.