Papers from a seminar on instructional materials for second language teaching include the following: "Co-Operative Language Learning: What's News?" (Ted Rodgers); "Principles of Communicative Task Design" (David Nunan); "Teaching Spoken English in the Non-Native Context: Considerations for the Materials Writer" (Mary…

Elementary school teacher candidates typically enter their professional training with deficiencies in their conceptual understanding of the topics of elementary school mathematics and with a reliance upon procedural (algorithmic) approaches to the solutions of mathematical problems. If elementary school teacher candidates are expected to teach…

An administrative survey of Adult Basic Education (ABE) programs in Pennsylvania during fiscal 1982-83 indicated that, although the level of funding for adult education programs was reduced from 1981-82 and 1982-83, progress was made in increasing the availability of programs throughout the state. However, the rate of enrollees who dropped out of…

A party of vocational educators from the United Kingdom (UK) traveled to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) to observe current experiments with the first year of apprenticeship training or, as it is called in Germany, the Berufsgrundbildungsjahr (BGJ). During its study, the visiting party focused its attention on the objectives, design,…

Drawn from talks given at a conference held at the University of New Hampshire in October 1984, the papers in this collection explore the relationship of composition to reading and literature studies. Following an introductory chapter written by Thomas Newkirk, which contains background information about that relationship as well as an overview of…

The result of case study interviews with teachers, administrators, and reading specialists, this book argues that the relationships of power and influence between people in schools affect dramatically the kinds of opportunities available to low-income children learning to read. In addition, this book offers suggestions for reforms based on an…

This guide is designed to assist volunteer tutors participating in an adult literacy program. Discussed in the first chapter are the meaning of the term functional literacy, the way in which we get meaning from print, and word identification skills. The next two sections deal with the history of literacy education in industrialized countries and…

This conference addressed the problems of children whose circumstances limit their ability to learn, their access to equal educational opportunity, and their basic civil rights, and the role of National Education Association (NEA) members and their communities in solving these problems. The keynote address by Blandina Cardenas Ramirez, excerpted…

Children's orientation to school and various aspects related to children's transition to first and fourth grades are examined in this study. The primary strategy for gathering information was use of questionnaires administered to teachers, principals, and a stratified random sample of parents. Results are reported in terms of seven topics: the…

Resulting from an evaluation of the Introduction to Vocations Program by Hawaii's State, district school, and community personnel, this handbook is intended to provide the necessary directions and guidelines for those schools interested in implementing the program. (The program is a restructured vocational-technical program for Hawaii's high…

Presenting information on how to implement a career resource center in a school, this guide is divided into five sections. The first section explains career development, the career resource center, the rationale for implementation, and why career information is important to career development. Section 2 lists seven objectives used in establishing…

This study determined whether or not there were significant differences between ratings of parents and teachers on the Adaptive Behavior Scale, Public School Version. Interviews with parents of approximately 150 white and Spanish-surnamed children from 7 to 12 years assigned to educable mentally retarded (EMR) classes were used in conjunction with…

Research on how the brain works has resulted in wider-scale adoption of the principles of problem-based learning (PBL) in many areas of education, including technology education. The PBL approach is attractive to curriculum developers because it is based on interdisciplinary learning, results in multiple outcomes, is integrated and…

Metacognition refers to the ability of learners to be aware of and monitor their learning processes. Cognitive skills are those needed to perform a task, whereas metacognitive skills are necessary to understand how it was performed. Metacognitive skills are generally divided into two types: self-assessment (the ability to assess one's own…

Computer-mediated instruction is particularly well-suited to typical community college students because it offers an alternative to the time and place constraints of traditional classrooms. Key characteristics of computer-mediated learning are as follows: instructors and students are separated by distance; instruction is delivered via computer…