WebTOP is a three-dimensional, Web-based, interactive computer graphics system that helps instructors teach and students learn about waves and optics. Current subject areas include waves, geometrical optics, reflection and refraction, polarization, interference, diffraction, lasers, and scattering. Some of the topics covered are suited for…

The researchers of this study selected four pragmatic research questions that distance learning administrators with high-enrolling Independent Study courses, similar to those that Brigham Young University offers through its Department of Independent Study, may be interested in exploring. These questions included: (1) When tutoring services are…

The author reports how a handful of California districts hire teachers in Mexico to tutor migrant students during the pupils' extended winter breaks in the land of their heritage. Dubbed the Binational Support Teacher Project, the apparently unique arrangement is one of the more creative solutions to an issue schools across the United States…

Supporting students to be self-directed learners in classrooms is currently more important than it has ever been in the past. The rapidly changing nature of society, the demands of the "new economy" and the contemporary understanding of life long learning have combined to highlight the need for students to be increasingly independent learners.…

Developments in higher education are taking place in the wider context of globalisation, the Lisbon strategy and within the framework of the Bologna Process. Designing and developing Bologna programmes by taking into account the needs of the economy is a tool for successful quality assurance in higher education and for close cooperation with the…

One of the most important reasons to investigate human metacognition is its role in directing how people study. However, limited evidence exists that metacognitively guided study benefits learning. Three experiments are presented that provide evidence for this link. In Experiment 1, participants' learning was enhanced when they were allowed to…

Traditionally, college English departments have resisted granting undergraduate internships a central place in their curricula. Many of these departments do little more than allow students to pursue internships as loosely supervised independent studies. An internship practicum course such as Purdue University's, however, enables students to…

This module presents the range of benefits youths receive from their participation in Community Science Workshops (CSWs)--from personal, to social, to academic and how these benefits reveal the core values of the CSWs in action. The multi-year evaluation of the CSW program included site visits to multiple Community Science Workshop sites around…

Growing evidence suggests that self-determination is a significant factor in improving educational and transition outcomes in students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. This volume reviews the breadth of available methods for teaching components of self-determination--including choice making, problem solving, decision making, goal…

This paper reports on a study which examines the extent to which specified cognitive, social, and metacognitive strategies, are used by language students when working with computer-based materials (CBMs), in self-study contexts outside of the language classroom; particularly in a self-access centre (SAC). Data were collected using questionnaires,…

This study investigated the interaction between students' academic background (high school grades, standardized exams, and enrollment in advanced high school courses) and how much autonomy they reported having in high school science through labs and projects. The objective was to see if students who reported experiencing more or less self-directed…

The Reading Rescue tutoring intervention model was investigated with 64 low-socioeconomic status, language-minority first graders with reading difficulties. School staff provided tutoring in phonological awareness, systematic phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and reading comprehension. Tutored students made significantly greater gains reading words…

This introduction to prosody--the art and science of metrical composition in poetry--teaches the reader how good poems work. The guide discusses the basic building blocks of poetry, such as rhyme, rhythm, meter, and form. Each of the 10 chapters is a progressive, step-by-step presentation with illustrative examples. The guide does not deal with…

This handbook contains a collections of nine articles on the subject of direct-response advertising. The handbook gives advice on how to create effective advertisements for home study courses. The nine articles are the following: "Overview of Home Study Advertising in the 1990s" (Michael P. Lambert); "Ad Features that Sell"…

Not aimed at beginning or elementary spellers, this book contains more than 100 tests interspersed with various informative items, pertinent quotations, amusing anecdotes, and lightly historical discourses relating to the orthography of English. The tests in the book represent a rather extensive vocabulary (a person who takes all of the tests is…