Describes a three-phased needs assessment approach used to identify lending skills and knowledge for loan officers at Wells Fargo Bank. Beginning at the corporate level and ending with job-relevant assessment of individual employee skills, the program used diagnostic tests with a computer-based system for scoring and reporting results…

Explains task definition which is the first stage in the Big 6, an approach to information and technology skills instruction. Highlights include defining the problem; identifying the information requirements of the problem; transferability from curriculum-based problems to everyday tasks; and task definition logs kept by students. (LRW)

The AccesSports Model allows professionals with basic knowledge of visual impairments and mainstream sports to analyze any sports activity and design adaptations needed for targets or goals, boundaries, and rules to enable individuals with visual impairments to participate. Suggestions for modifying baseball, table tennis, swim racing, wrestling,…

Argues that understanding assignments is the first step toward successful college writing. Urges instructors to support students by helping them to decode assignments. Breaks down instructions into individual tasks including (1) writing an essay, (2) examining an issue, (3) reviewing articles and books, and (4) focusing on some texts. Defines each…

Reports on a conference workshop that addressed Visual Information Retrieval Interfaces (VIRIs). Topics include evaluation methods; task dimension for evaluating VIRIs; efforts to fund European development of VIRIs; metrics, including cosine vector; navigation among documents; and interactions with users. (LRW)

As part of the development of a scoring algorithm for a simulation-based dental hygiene initial licensure examination, this effort conducted a task analysis of the dental hygiene domain. Broad classes of behaviors that distinguish along the dental hygiene expert-novice continuum were identified and applied to the design of nine paper-based cases…

In this article, the authors discuss how art educators often find themselves faced with students whose needs are beyond what the art educators feel trained to handle. How can they design lessons so that every student feels successful? Because art educators are also art therapists, school colleagues often ask them for help in working with students…

When learning basic color vocabulary, young children show a selective delay in the acquisition of brown and gray relative to other basic color terms. In this study, we first establish the robustness of this finding and then investigate the extent to which perception, language, and color preference may influence color conceptualization.…

This chapter is concerned with how assessments of students' work in classrooms, although primarily intended to promote learning, can also become an important source of information for evaluating a school's effectiveness within an accountability system. The authors begin their discussion by considering issues of fairness, to schools and to their…

This article introduces an approach to planning sequences of communication tasks that require learners to become personally involved in their learning. By drawing on their own ideas and experiences, as a product of earlier tasks in a given sequence, learners generate the content and resource material on which subsequent tasks operate. The article…

This article describes how to construct a laser level. This laser level can be made using a typical 4' (or shorter) bubble level and a small laser point. The laser unit is detachable, so the bubble level can also be used in the conventional way. However, the laser level works better than a simple bubble level. Making this inexpensive device is an…

This paper discusses obstacles to teaching online documentation and shares a collaborative approach to overcoming these obstacles. The paper describes three obstacles: (1) students have had limited access to online documents and hypertext systems; (2) standards and principles of effective design for online documents are not clearly established;…

A DACUM (Developing a Curriculum) task analysis for the position of Chief Continuing Education Administrator was developed in June 1988. A panel of 11 chief continuing education administrators from Ohio produced a DACUM chart of 123 tasks and traits they felt best described them and what they do in performing their duties. They also developed a…

This project was conducted to develop an apprentice-related training curriculum for cabinetmakers and millmen in Oregon. During the project, a task inventory for the occupation of cabinetmaker/millman was produced, the components of a complete four-year related training program were identified, a nationwide search for existing instructional…

Treatment programs dealing with alcoholism have historically been staffed primarily by nondegreed professionals. The recovered alcoholic, usually without an advanced degree, continues to occupy an almost unequaled role. This project describes an attempt to design meaningful, useful training for these alcoholism counselors. Intensive personal…