A teaching master at a community college in Central Ontario implemented a practicum designed to increase the rate of child-directed activities in early childhood education programs. The primary goal was to increase awareness of early childhood educators, parents, and board members regarding the benefits of child-directed activities at early…

A study was conducted to evaluate the effect of integrating advanced placement licensed vocational nursing (APLVN) students with generic students in the second year of the registered nursing program at Long Beach City College. It was hypothesized that the academic achievement of the APLVN students who were taught as a separate group for the first…

This practicum was designed to increase the knowledge and awareness about sex and drugs of middle school students. The primary goal was to provide current information to the students about pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and adolescent drug abuse. A second objective was to provoke the students into thinking and acting as responsible…

A day care program director designed and implemented a practicum to improve the skills of day care teachers who were not effectively fostering language development in their classrooms. Classroom observations revealed that children attending the centers seldom asked or answered questions, used few complex sentences, and only rarely used language…

A practicum was conducted at a small, private elementary school to introduce strategies that would reduce kindergarten classroom disruptions and playground disturbances due to fighting, verbal confrontations, and disregard for authority and rules. A survey conducted at the school revealed that kindergarten teachers handled a daily average of 10…

This practicum project developed and implemented a program to teach young children reading readiness skills before they entered first grade. A target group of 20 students ranging in age from 4 to 6 years old in an elementary school kindergarten class was established for the program. During the 12-week implementation, the target group participated…

A 3-month practicum utilized teacher workshops and biweekly consultation to provide all fourth grade teachers (N=11) in a public school district with higher level questioning strategies to meet gifted students' cognitive needs. A total of six fourth grade students were identified as gifted and talented. At the workshops, higher level questioning…

A weekly dance at a community center was used to develop a teachable moment for active senior citizens regarding fire safety, in order to reduce their injuries and possible loss of life. A target group of active senior citizens 70 years of age and older who frequent the weekly community center dance was established for the program. The program…

A study examined the effect of audiovisual-supported instruction on student grade point average. Two groups of students in economics classes taught by the same instructor served as the sample population for the study. The first group, consisting of 36 students, received four 1-hour lectures each week. The second group, consisting of 32 students,…

This practicum investigated the effectiveness of using music activities to reinforce basic money skills with 10 students, ages 12 to 21, with mental retardation in the trainable range. The program used a combination of music and visual aids as strategies for reinforcing basic money skills and improving student on-task behaviors in the classroom.…

A primary grades specialist implemented a 10-week practicum intervention designed to increase third graders' social skills by training their teachers in cooperative learning techniques and providing cooperatively structured lessons. Eight skills were addressed; these included the skills of accepting peers' ideas for group activities, completing…

A teaching team leader and second grade teacher designed and implemented a 10-week practicum intervention meant to improve the inferential comprehension of 105 second graders whose reading scores on the Ginn Mastery Tests revealed a gap between inferential and literal comprehension. It was reasoned that the gap would decrease if teachers were…

A program was developed for six kindergarten students identified as at risk because of developmental delays. The program involved an hour of instruction after the regular school day, 2 days a weeks for a 10-week period, with a curriculum focusing on visual, auditory, and motor development. Specific skill areas included visual motor coordination,…

The project attempted to improve the social problem solving skills of second to fifth grade children with learning disabilities and/or attention deficit disorders, and to offer support to their parents and improve parenting self-confidence. Both the parent group (N=9) and the children's group (N=5) used the Rochester Social Problem Solving Skills…

Noting that many early childhood practitioners have difficulty understanding and articulating how developmentally appropriate practices in their programs contribute to students' kindergarten readiness, this report details the implementation and evaluation of practicum experiences designed to improve preschool teachers' developmentally appropriate…