Each fall, thousands of high school graduates launch into the next phase of their academic careers: college. They arrive on campuses across the United States full of hope and optimism, trepidation and anxiety. All intensely feel both the eagerness to excel and the fear of failure. The author shares his experience of dealing with college first-year…

First-year students in high school face numerous pressures and usually have to face high school finals on their own. It does not have to be this way as a school outside Chicago, Maine East, demonstrates with its Freshman Advisory program that has senior students mentoring first year students.

This paper offers the perspective of a group of Primary One children in Singapore on their transition from preschool to formal schooling. It examines their impressions of school expectations, adjustments in daily routine, and the best and worst aspects of school. Data obtained from a structured interview indicates that children regard school as a…

In this article, the author, director of Watauga College and residential learning communities at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, shares her experience dealing with first year college students who are taking medication to manage depression, anxiety, or attention deficit and hyperactivity disorders. She stresses that this is a…

This article presents a Wisconsin post-secondary guide to disability documentation. The guide will assist organizations to determine their role in understanding needed documentation for students with disabilities transitioning from PK-12 to Wisconsin postsecondary education. This Guide provides the following: (1) Summary of Applicable Laws; (2)…

This fact sheet highlights statistics related to the transition into high school for U.S. students. The statistics indicate a noticeable trend in the lack of progress of many students throughout freshman year. Many students are held back in ninth grade--creating what is known as the "ninth grade bulge"--and drop out by tenth grade--contributing to…

Most of the students at Milpera State High School are in Australia because of wars, famine, or economic devastation in their homelands. Many have suffered the additional loss of parents and other family members. Some have low (or nonexistent) literacy in their native languages, and many have had few opportunities for formal education. Such…

In this article, the author proposes that, aside from modified instructional strategies, cultural mediation by secondary teachers on behalf of minority students is the key to school adjustment and academic achievement of language minority students in secondary schools. Cultural mediation can be defined as a process of planned intervention in which…

Teacher warmth and support, say University of Virginia researchers Bridget Hamre and Robert Pianta, have unparalleled power to help children adjust and achieve. Their 2005 study of 910 first-grade students included 5- and 6-year-olds whose mothers had low-level education and children identified with "significant behavior, social, and/or…

This paper written in French (the first phase of an ongoing research project) endeavors to set off the influence of introduction of imaginary writing workshops over the social and affective development of children from 2 to 5 years old. This influence is more precisely centered on the "power to read" (power of separation, distanciation,…

Ways that college faculty can increase students' learning by reducing stress are identified. Consideration is given to: the effects of stress on learning, the value of feedback and control, the importance of the interaction between faculty and students, the value of stress awareness, and what students can do. When given properly, feedback can…

This document describes a counseling center-developed workshop for incoming college freshmen at Clemson University (South Carolina) designed to help students choose a college major and prepare for study in that major. The workshop described was offered in conjunction with new student orientation as a proactive effort to promote adjustment and to…

This document is a plan for tracking students' social growth by the college resident assistant and for evaluating the students' growth and the resident assistant's performance. The plan, based on Bloom's Taxonomy of Affective Cognitive Processes, includes a clarified purpose, objectives for implementation, shared assessment values, and continuing…

A program of instruction was designed to promote positive self-concept in elementary school students in order to test the hypothesis that such self-concept is necessary for academic achievement and desirable behavior. Twenty students who were performing at a year below grade level in reading and math were selected for the study. These students…

A school board member in Sarasota County, Florida, interviewed 30 failing students at five high schools to find out why they were failing. She concluded that more caring attitudes by school staff are needed to help these students to succeed in school. (TE)