The "revolving door syndrome" refers to the ease with which students are able to enroll in community colleges and the equal ease with which they can drop out. In addition to traditional retention strategies, such as assessment, placement, orientation and advising, innovative approaches have been implemented at five community colleges…

Some of the ways authentic writing assessment can be used in education are discussed. Using the Illinois Writing Program (IWP) as an example, this digest also looks at some of the goals, solutions, and experiences of a program that is implementing authentic writing assessment. New directions in authentic assessment are aimed at going beyond…

In an effort to inform foreign language teaching efforts in elementary and secondary schools in the United States, a small-scale, 3-month exploratory study was designed to collect information that would highlight what was most interesting and illuminating about foreign language education in various countries. Twenty-two educators from 19 countries…

This directory describes approximately 300 discretionary projects addressing the early childhood provisions of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). It was compiled from four volumes separately published by the ERIC/OSEP Special Project. The discretionary grants and contracts authorized by the 1997 Amendments to the IDEA are…

The purpose of this publication is to focus on issues in development and implementation of comprehensive guidance programs. To achieve this purpose a list of 10 of the most important issues was composed. The top 10 issues, in order of frequency of concern of leaders, are: (1) displacement of non-guidance tasks, including school counselors'…

Projects are in-depth studies of a topic undertaken by a class, a group, or an individual child. Projects are intended to strengthen children's dispositions to be interested, absorbed, and involved in in-depth observation, investigation, and representation of worthwhile phenomena in their own environments. This Catalog on the Project Approach, the…

Trends and innovations in science education at two-year colleges are explored in this series of 12 articles. The collection includes: (1) a discussion of alternative instructional modes by John Holleman; (2) a description of the development of a remedial science and biology course for homebound students by Leonard O'Hara; (3) an examination of…

This book describes the characteristics of secondary schools in the United States that make it difficult for immigrant students to succeed. These include the following: fragmented school days and instructional programs in which English-as-a-Second-Language and content area teachers work in separate departments and rarely interact; the complex…

This digest summarizes a larger document of the same title which takes the position that because American democracy is founded on the premise that citizens need to engage in free and open discussion of opposing points of view, it is important that intellectual conflict become part of college instruction. It suggests several ways in which…

The thesis of this book is that intellectual conflict is an important and powerful instructional tool which should become part of day-to-day student life in colleges and universities. Properly structured academic controversy results in increased achievement, better problem-solving and decision-making skills, more positive interpersonal skills, and…

The Educational Media and Technology Yearbook (EMTY) provides essential and timely information to help educational technologists, librarians, and media specialists practice their profession in a dynamic and changing field. By documenting current trends, issues, innovations, and research findings, the book provides a valuable reference tool for the…

Addressing the concerns and resources of small, rural school districts, this book sets out a rationale and model plan for school-community relations. After introductory material and a review of what's been done, the first major section lists and describes 10 criteria shown by research to be most important for a small school district community…

This 5-volume directory describes more than 1,000 discretionary grants and contracts supported by the Research to Practice Division of the Office of Special Education Programs. The projects are grouped into sections representing the seven program areas of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) Amendments (1997), Part D. This…

The monograph, written for persons and organizations at state and local levels who share concern about learning activities for adults in rural America, explores characteristics of three traditional providers of nonformal education (the Cooperative Extension Service, public libraries, and community service divisions of community colleges), assesses…

Annotations of ERIC literature on the learning environment are presented in this document. Materials were selected for inclusion from the ERIC catalogs Resources in Education (RIE) and Current Index to Journals in Education (CIJE). The 10 publications are as follows: "School Is for Teachers: Enhancing the School Environment," by Buck Adams and…