Adolescents are entering middle level schools today with more sophisticated skills and a broader range of positive experiences than ever before. However, middle-school students undergo major physical, emotional, social, and cognitive changes. This publication describes the role of educators and the school in helping middle-school students develop…

This paper provides a model of course-embedded assessment for use in an undergraduate Accounting Information Systems course, and reports the results obtained from implementation. The profession's educational objectives are mapped to specific computer skills and assignments, to provide direct evidence of learning outcomes. Indirect evidence of…

Houston, Texas, was one of the cities awarded a grant via the Annenberg funds to implement school reforms. It developed the Houston Annenberg Challenge with local collaborators to initiate and nurture systemic change, thus improving education. A research and evaluation study investigated how funded schools implemented the reform initiative, what…

The experience of long-term poverty affects many child outcomes, in part through a family stress process in which poverty is considered to be one of the major factors causing family dysfunction, depression among caregivers and inadequate parenting. Recent scholarship extends the classical Family Stress Model by researching the ways in which…

Perceptions of success in teaching and learning adult literacy in England were examined in a study that included interviews with 30 learners and 10 tutors. The teaching approaches most often cited by the tutors as leading to success were as follows: (1) base tutoring on individual interests; (2) personal and social support for each student; (3)…

Explores the cumulative impact of repeated standardized testing on student attitudes and motivation. By high school, a large number of students, especially low achievers, become disillusioned about tests, are less motivated to give genuine efforts, and increasingly use inappropriate test-taking strategies, undermining test validity and genuine…

The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of a revised state-of-the-art drug prevention program, Project ALERT, on risk factors for drug use in mostly rural midwestern schools and communities. Fifty-five middle schools from South Dakota were randomly assigned to treatment or control conditions. Treatment-group students received 11…

The impact of goal attainment in a dietary change program to increase fruit, 100% juice, and vegetable consumption was assessed among fourth-grade students. At each session, the students were given goals related to increasing fruit, juice, and vegetable consumption. Baseline consumption and postconsumption were assessed with up to 4 days of…

As part of the usual end of year meeting that has been a feature of the National Center for Engineering and Technology Education (NCETE) project, a conference intending to provide a forum for young voices in an outside of the Center was organized. The basic model for the gathering was borrowed from track and field. This was to be an intellectual…

These proceedings contain the papers of the IADIS International Conference on Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age (CELDA 2013), October 22-24, 2013, which has been organized by the International Association for Development of the Information Society (IADIS), co-organized by The University of North Texas (UNT), sponsored by the…

Middle school students (N=712) were surveyed about their achievement goals and cognitive processing strategies. Results suggest that academically at-risk students use deep strategies less and are less learning focused than not at-risk and special education students. Special education and at-risk students tended to be more ability-focused than not…

This study describes the first-year implementation of a professional development school (PDS) program in an elementary school and reports the extent to which participation in the PDS program influenced teachers' (N=32) perceptions regarding teacher empowerment along four dimensions (mentoring self-efficacy, teaching self-efficacy, professional…

Project 30 is a national initiative of 30 representative institutions of higher education charged with redesigning teacher education programs. Objectives include implemention of reforms that will increase the competence and authority of teachers, provide for the substantive and imaginative development of the intellect of students, and strengthen…

This paper reports and discusses some of the results of a comprehensive survey of approximately 3,000 1985-90 graduates of 11 teacher education programs in the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, and Southwest. Forty-nine percent graduated from 4-year programs, 36 percent from integrated 5-year programs, and 14 percent from fifth-year (graduate only)…

This book is intended to guide the reader in the process of designing his or her career and achieving it. Chapter 1 begins with a look at self: developing areas of self, personality type, self-concept, and self-efficacy, making positive personality changes, sharpening basic skills, and evaluating career potential. Chapter 2 explores developing…