This paper reports on a nationwide, random telephone survey conducted with parents and teachers of children in kindergarten through fifth grade. The survey measured parents' and teachers': (1) interest in and attitudes toward science; (2) comfort level teaching and talking about science; (3) use of hands-on science activities and teaching methods;…

Two main instructional approaches have been used to educate English learners in California--English language development (ELD) together with academic instruction in the primary language (bilingual education), and ELD with or without Specially Designed Academic Instruction in English (SDAIE). Since the passage of Proposition 227 in June 1998,…

We developed a verbal self-guidance (VSG) training program as a transfer of training intervention (i.e., an intervention designed to enhance the application and usage of skills learned in a training session post-training). We then assessed the impact of this training on presentation performance, self-efficacy (i.e., task-specific confidence) and…

This study investigated strategies teachers can use to improve students' use of self-regulated learning strategies in a Web-based setting. SRL is defined as a learner's intentional efforts to manage and direct complex learning activities and is composed of three primary components including cognitive strategy use, metacognitive processing, and…

Handheld devices have the potential to make a large impact on K-12 educational settings, due to their relative low cost, high mobility, and interactive learning capabilities. This article, the outcome of a large-scale project examining the use of handheld computers, examines how handheld computers can improve teaching and learning, what…

This short note introduces an interesting random walk on a circular path with cards of numbers. By using high school probability theory, it is proved that under some assumptions on the number of cards, the probability that a walker will return to a fixed position will tend to one as the length of the circular path tends to infinity.

This report presents the manner in which a systemic approach of combining standards, assessment, and accountability into a unified set of laws and regulations has been coming onto the state scene for the past 2 decades. A complete performance-based education accountability system includes four components: standards and assessment, multiple…

Recommendations designed to assist states in the creation of meaningful definitions of types of schools and students for use in the Council of Chief State School Officers' Education Data Improvement Project are presented. The Project's goals are to promote and facilitate the reform and refinement of the National Center for Education Statistics'…

This paper acknowledges that research on school dropouts presents problems in the definitions and computation of dropout indices. It considers a variety of methods for computing dropout rates, using dropout rates which are real and which were available at the end of the 1986-1987 school year. Fall enrollment, average daily membership, and total…

Embedded multimedia refers to teaching methods that embed video content within teachers' lessons. The research of Mayer and others has suggested that multimedia instruction can enhance learning by using the capacity of both visual and verbal memory systems. The present study is an evaluation of embedded multimedia in a year-long randomized…

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 has focused attention on improving the academic achievement of all students, including more than 6 million students with disabilities and requires that all students be assessed. Students with disabilities may be included through accommodations, such as extended time, or alternate assessments, such as teacher…

Intel Teach to the Future was designed to provide a professional development experience that would prepare teachers to use technology with their students. The developers of the Intel Teach to the Future program began with two equally weighted goals, one related to the type of impact they wished to have and one related to the scale of impact. The…

This executive summary presents program evaluation outcomes for the Core Course component of the Schools Attuned Program. Core Courses occurred in sites across the United States, Canada and in Zurich, Switzerland throughout 2004. Analyses are based on information from the Schools Attuned Participant Core Course Survey and Schools Attuned…

Long distance education has been a part of instructional delivery for more than one hundred years. Beginning as correspondence study accompanying the establishment of national postal systems, distance education has undergone dramatic change fueled by the rapid and recent explosion of technology. This exponential growth in technology has provided…

This study addresses the validation of a holistic English assessment process used at Cabrillo College (California). The process of prompt development, scoring rubrics, reader training, scoring, and administration procedures have remained largely unchanged over the years. This report provides new evidence on content validity, consequential and cut…