The community-based rehabilitation model has successfully trained community members in rural areas of Asia, Africa, and Latin America to deliver educational and rehabilitation services to disabled individuals and their families. Practices applicable to improving educational and rehabilitation services in the United States involve staff…

At the British Open University (a distance education institution), rural tutors working in remote areas of Scotland felt that professional isolation interfered with self-assessment and professional development. Describes action research into student and tutor perceptions of teaching and learning that provides a basis for reflective teaching and…

Mobile preschool units provide a viable solution to the problem of delivering preschool education to isolated rural New Zealanders. Advantages include delivery of bicultural education to Maori children, a low teacher-student ratio, provision of qualified teachers, and enthusiastic parent participation. Disadvantages include inadequate buildings,…

At a clinical school in rural New South Wales (Australia), medical students follow patients through the health care system instead of being attached to doctors. Seeing the progression of illnesses, the impact of behavioral aspects, and the continuity of care develops lifelong learning skills. Because of geographic isolation, information technology…

Proposed welfare reform could be detrimental to the education and employment opportunities of poor rural women and children. Describes the educational experiences of women who have attended the Low Country Human Development Center (LCHDC) (South Carolina). For the past 20 years, the LCHDC has provided pregnant teenagers with a high school…

Highlights successful innovative practices in Indian teacher education, including microteaching, internships, programed learning material, models of teaching, and integrated teacher education; presents information on the teacher education curriculum, inservice teacher education, and teacher education for rural development. (SM)

The problems of rural children are discussed. Rural children are threatened by many of the same social and health problems that urban children face, complicated by distance, which affects access to health care and other services. Recommendations are made to assure that rural children receive the services they need. (SLD)

Rural graduate students in early intervention used case-study and ethnographic methods to record family-focused field experiences, thereby developing an understanding of family perspectives and personal theories about early intervention in rural settings. These personnel preparation processes help students engage in a lifelong process of…

As part of its mission to increase the availability of primary care providers in rural and other underserved areas of the country, the national Area Health Education Center Program has developed new rural-focused initiatives, including expanded student experiences in underserved areas, rural-track residencies, and telehealth links to rural…

Overview of the interactive technologies used by the Northern Territory Secondary Correspondence School in Australia: print media utilizing desktop publishing and electronic transfer; telephone or H-F radio; interactive television; and interactive computing. More fully describes its interactive CD-ROM courses. Emphasizes that the programs are…

Presents a history of federal government involvement in public education. Discusses programs for the deaf and blind, land grant colleges, and rural schools; and technology-related programs, including the E-rate program, children's television programs, and the Star School Program. Emphasizes the government role needed to ensure access to the…

This chapter presents five case histories that describe literacy education practices in rural areas of England. All programs include the use of action research and the concept of open learning. Open learning is a nontraditional approach to education that includes the use of learning centers, computers, audio- and videotapes, and distance…

Rural schools typically face multiple challenges related to providing educational opportunities for students and staff. A comparison of curricular offerings in English, foreign languages, and mathematics in a Chicago suburban high school, a rural high school district, and a small rural unit district reveals the curricular disadvantages of small…

This paper reports on the Contact Children's Mobile, a program developed in 1987 to provide educational and social enrichment opportunities for children from birth to 12 years who live in a large remote region surrounding Wanaaring, Australia. Two teachers travel an average of 800 kilometers weekly to make home visits or hold daylong educational…

The rapid growth of special education programs has exceeded the capability of teacher training programs in West Virginia to fill new positions in schools serving children with learning or behavior disorders. The focus of the Mainstream Practicum Project is to train regular educators who are currently working as untrained, uncredentialed personnel…