Learning to swim and learning a foreign language are analagous activities, in that both are skills learned for different reasons. Few foreign language students will attain "near-native fluency;" nor will many of them become interpreters or teachers. Foreign language teachers must therefore revise priorities, restructure courses, adjust methods,…

Secondary vocational-technical education programs in Mississippi are faced with many challenges resulting from sweeping educational reforms at the national and state levels. Schools and teachers are increasingly being held accountable for providing true learning activities to every student in the classroom. This accountability is measured through…

Professional studies courses often focus on mastering a common body of knowledge but ignore student interaction and the development of critical thinking and communication skills. In a cost accounting course at Connecticut's Sacred Heart University offered in fall 1993, various group and individual activities were implemented to incorporate these…

This paper addresses the problem of how to place students in a sequence of hierarchically related courses from an (empirical) Bayesian point of view. Based on a minimal set of assumptions, it is shown that optimal mastery rules for the courses are always monotone and a nonincreasing function of the scores on the placement test. On the other hand,…

This paper presents suggested readings to aid instructors in honing their teaching skills. As a point of departure 20 IDEA Teaching Methods are used. Readings are divided into four categories: communicating content and purpose, involving students, creating enthusiasm, and preparing exams. Helpful material is suggested for specific topics within…

In the fall of 1990, and again in the fall of 1991, George Washington University invited a parent of a special needs child to assist in the teaching of a course on the dynamics of family intervention. The rationale for this action was to: (1) give students a personal experience with a parent of a special needs child; and (2) provide a model of the…

A study examined the efffect of a restructured preservice literacy methods course on the attitudes and beliefs of three preservice teachers. The major goals of the restructured course were to develop substantive and lasting changes in the preservice teachers' conceptual understandings and theoretical perspectives about literacy teaching, and to…

A career development course designed to meet the diverse needs and time considerations of returning adult college students is presented. The first of two sections provides an overview of the unique character of these nontraditional students, including their greater experience and maturity, multiple role demands, and increased commitment to career…

Information on a Northern Kentucky University course entitled "The Mind of the University" is presented in several articles. After Darryl Poole briefly discusses the origins of the course, H. L. Wallace describes the background of the project, course themes, class materials, and testing/grading. The objective of the course is defined as…

Course syllabi for administrative and organizational theory courses offered in universities affiliated with the University Council for Educational Administration are analyzed. The relative extent to which four schools of though (traditional, phenomenology, ethnomethodology, and critical theory) contribute topics, themes, and concepts to the…

A description is presented of a course, "Patient and Family Education," designed to provide second-year baccalaureate nursing students with the skills and knowledge necessary to educate patients about health care and treatment. Following a rationale for and general information about the course, a glossary of terms and a list of instructional…

Many teachers feel that the primary goal of language education is the development of communicative rather than linguistic competence. This shift in focus has affected syllabus design. However, no single syllabus appears satisfactory by itself. The grammatical syllabus is effective to instill in learners automatic production of accurate structural…

A study was conducted to assess faculty and student preferences regarding the goals and content of Saddleback College's (California) liberal arts mathematics course. Following a review of the literature, an extensive list of course goals, content areas, and prior student preparation needs was formed into a questionnaire, which was administered to…

This Fort Bend (Texas) social studies curriculum guide for fourth grade covers six six-week periods, and the 13 course outlines include the topics to be covered, the main goals and their supporting objectives, and a materials correlation key. The 13 topics include map skills, personal, social, and civic responsibility, forest, desert, plains and…

This teacher's guide was developed for the second of four courses in Valencia Community College's Interdisciplinary Studies Program, a 2-year core general education curriculum which chronologically examines the major developments in the evolution of human knowledge. The guide provides an introductory overview of the semester's topic (i.e., the…