The last of five booklets on specific sports instruction in Special Olympics presents information on teaching cross country skiing to mentally retarded persons. The approach uses goals, short term objectives, task analyzed activities, assessments and teaching suggestions for individualizing and integrating the sports skills instruction with other…

The paper describes a prevocational training program for primary age trainable and severely retarded students. Three goals were established: to improve fine motor skills, visual perception and cognitive skills, and work habits and attitudes. Ten tasks (including stuffing envelopes and toy car assembly) were chosen and task analyzed. Results of a 7…

The backward chaining instructional method, based on behavioral learning principles, offers swimming instructors an alternative to traditional methods of teaching swimming skills by breaking down the skill into a number of tasks or steps and teaching them in reverse sequence. (CB)

A project requiring undergraduate students to prepare job analyses and use them to develop other personnel procedures is described. The project requires analysis of a job, preparation of task statements, and description of requisite abilities for that job. Discusses positive feedback from students and provides recommendations for instructors.…

Contrasts the "ability training" and "task-analytic" approaches in teaching learning disabled children. Describes the use of the task-analytic behavioral model in Project EXCEL, a Child Service Demonstration Center. Summarizes guiding principles of this approach, and indicates that participating students have shown dramatic…

Presents a single integrated set of procedures for both analysis and design of instruction according to the Elaboration Theory. (JEG)

Offers new insights into learning and teaching critical numeracy. Makes distinctions between generative or computational numeracy tasks and interpretive numeracy tasks, and between mathematically confined interpretation and critical evaluation that leads to action. (Author/VWL)

Among the challenges many teachers face in facilitating the improvement of speaking skills are sparing sufficient time for practice to enable students to achieve fluency in speaking through internalizing the structures, and establishing a balance between fluency and accuracy. This study aimed to seek an answer to the question as to whether…

Over the past 2 decades, research has demonstrated that learner collaboration facilitates second language (L2) acquisition (Lapkin, Swain, & Smith, 2002; McDonough, 2004; Storch, 1998, 2004; Swain & Lapkin, 1998). Adopting a sociocultural perspective (e.g., Swain & Lapkin, 1998), the current study compared the effectiveness of collaborative and…

Phonological awareness (PA) is the ability to analyze spoken language into its component sounds and to manipulate these smaller units. Literature review related to PA shows that a variety of factor groups play a role in PA in Mandarin such as linguistic experience (spoken language, alphabetic literacy, and second language learning), item type,…

This booklet focuses on effective mathematics teaching. Drawing on a wide range of research, it describes the kinds of pedagogical approaches that engage learners and lead to desirable outcomes. The aim of the booklet is to deepen the understanding of practitioners, teacher educators, and policy makers and assist them to optimize opportunities for…