During the last decade, the study of American Sign Language (ASL) as a second language has become enormously popular. More and more schools and universities recognize the important role that ASL can play in foreign language education. This monograph provides a comprehensive introduction to the history and structure of ASL, to the Deaf community…

The adult students who are the subject of this report bring a different orientation with them to the study of language than does the typical adult immigrant or foreign student of English. This former group may be engaged in foreign language study in order to satisfy a college level language requirement or as part of a continuing education or…

The growing interest in human resources development (HRD) is a response to the increasingly competitive business environment which, in turn, has been shaped by such forces as the emergence of global competition, the quickening pace of technological innovation and the reduction of federal regulations in some industries. This monograph seeks to…

Learners of all ages need to expand their self-knowledge and determine the ways their interests and abilities are applicable in the changing social, economic, and work environments. Many of the new ways of teaching and learning offer processes by which students can gain experiences that enhance their self-knowledge. These varied learning processes…

Summarizes 15 papers commissioned for the workshop on "Assessing Higher Order Thinking and Communication Skills in College Graduates," convened in response to National Education Goal V as presented in the America 2000 document. (RS)

The staff at the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory developed a framework that classifies factors contributing to secondary vocational education effectiveness. These factors are organized into four categories--occupational, educational, ancillary, and societal. Another study reviewed the effective schooling literature and identified six…

A text-editing approach to composition in the foreign language classroom is set forth. In a 15-week composition course meeting three times each week, students prepare a weekly composition that they will revise after an in-class text-editing session involving several student papers. The third day is devoted to grammar work. Criteria for evaluating…

Societal trends and personal characteristics are facilitating movement from corporate to self-employment. The entrepreneurship movement is characterized by several trends that are influencing the way people work: such as younger workers expecting shorter-term commitments to work, expanding career options, opening of worldwide operations, and…

Career portfolios contain evidence of individuals' knowledge and skills and are useful tools in job search and career change, especially now that employers want generalizable workplace skills not well portrayed by traditional means and students are often inept at communicating their skills and knowledge to employers. Career portfolios contain and…

The World Wide Web has a wealth of information on career planning, individual jobs, and job search methods that counselors and teachers can use. Search engines such as Yahoo! and Magellan, organized like library tools, and engines such as AltaVista and HotBot search words or phrases. Web indexes offer a variety of features. The criteria for…

Much of the evaluation of vocational education at the state and local levels has been conducted in response to federal legislation. Although some of the evaluative information has been useful for program improvement, much has been collected only for compliance with federal and state mandates. The educational reform movement has prompted school…

An outgrowth of the educational reform movement is interest in alternative forms of assessment. One response to the call for increased rigor in measuring learner progress has been the suggestion that assessment should be restructured to resemble real life, with learners taking more responsibility for assessing their own progress. Portfolio…

The skills most often mentioned in definitions of critical thinking are the ability to think creatively, make decisions, solve problems, visualize, reason, analyze, interpret, and know how to learn. Vocational education should be involved in developing thinking skills for the following reasons: occupations are becoming more reliant on cognitive…

Intended for use by trainers of candidates for the Child Development Associate (CDA) Credential, this collection consists of resource materials issued by the CDA Resource Center, Univeristy of Illinois, between winter 1978 and winter 1980. Part I, the Introduction, provides background information about CDA objectives, components of the CDA…

Three major sections comprise these proceedings of the 1981 Conference of the National Association for Environmental Education. Section I contains four addresses on environmental issues by guest speakers and two symposia, one on synfuels, and the other on acid rain. The twelve essays in Section II give the practitioner's perspective on…