Most of today's students are skilled in instant messaging, Web browsing, online games, and blogs. These have become part of the social landscape and have changed how we learn and where we learn. The question becomes how to harness the attractiveness and ubiquity of electronic venues toward the goal of teaching neuroscience. At the Rice University…

Educators have continually sought to achieve a balance between a phonics-based, code-emphasis program and a more holistic, meaning-based approach to emergent literacy instruction. This article describes an integrated phonics and literature-based approach to developing children's emergent literacy skills. These skills included alphabet knowledge,…

Secondary science teachers who integrate food safety (FS) into curricula can provide FS knowledge and skills to youth while reinforcing science skills and concepts. National science education standards and the Biological Science Curriculum Study 5E Inquiry-based Learning Model were used to design an online training, Food Safety FIRST. The training…

The writing center at Bluefield State College (West Virginia) is called the SPICE Center, SPICE being an acronym for Self Paced Instruction for Competency in English. In addition to emphasizing skill acquisition and flexibility, it stresses face-to-face evaluation of written work, and places heavy emphasis on writing as process instead of writing…

Field tests on an interpersonal skills instructional program, the Heartsmart Adventures, were conducted for the formative and summative evaluation in 14 classrooms in 7 schools of 394 students in grade 4 classes. The results indicate that the Heartsmart program is likely to provide an appealing, educationally relevant and worthwhile experience to…

This report evaluated the third year of operation (1984-85) of the Chapter 2 All-Day Kindergarten Program. The goals of the program were to (1) promote growth in reading readiness and mathematics skills for educationally disadvantaged children; (2) further the affective growth of these children; and (3) encourage parents' increased participation…

The prekindergarten program in the Fort Worth Independent School District (FWISD) is described. The program was developed to meet the needs of disadvantaged four year old children. Students were chosen with respect to age, residence in a Chapter I attendance area, and a low score on the Preschool Screening Evaluation (PSE). Areas of learning…

A proficiency model that provides information on individuals' mastery status on specific skills is illustrated. The model describes the construction and scoring of mastery tests as well as the organization and reporting of individual and group testing results. With the model, an individual's mastery status with respect to various skills can be…

A study examined whether middle-aged adults' attitudes toward persons could be changed in a positive direction through planned educational experiences designed specifically to change attitudes. A sample of 162 middle-aged adults from various sections of North Carolina (89 of whom constituted the experimental group and 79 of whom comprised the…

Because a lack of adequate data eliminated the possibility of using control groups or historical comparison groups, Colorado's procedure for evaluating state bilingual/bicultural programs was designed to determine whether children in the bilingual program (K-3) had learned more than they would have learned if they had not been in the program. A…

Violence is increasingly present in Quebec schools. Our position is that we should invest in "primary" prevention of violence by helping preschool children develop cognitive competencies. One of the aspects of cognitive development explored in this text regards children's Social Representations (SR) of violence. Indeed, a number of…

The operating characteristics of 114 mathematics pretest items from the Praxis I: Computer Based Test were analyzed in terms of item attributes and test developers' judgments of item difficulty. Item operating characteristics were defined as the difficulty, discrimination, and asymptote parameters of a three parameter logistic item response theory…

Discusses a survey of the teaching staff in the Preschool Program of the Jefferson County Public Schools in the Louisville, Kentucky metropolitan area. The survey was designed to ascertain the attitudes of the teaching staff toward the mainstreaming of disabled children in the program. (BB)

Describes a study conducted in Dutch primary schools to alter the cognitive effects that television violence can have on 10- to 12-year-olds by encouraging them to evaluate critically the portrayal of violence. Teacher and student attitudes are discussed, and the educational effects of the curriculum are considered. (Contains 20 references.) (LRW)

For paired rankings data, a statistical test is proposed to detect whether subjects' posttreatment rankings have moved systematically toward an unknown ranking or set of rankings. Using paired-rankings from 38 ninth graders in a writing and literary criticism course, graphical methods for representing the data are presented. (SLD)