A study examined the policies and practices that higher educational institutions in the United Kingdom have adopted towards experiential learning as a means of fulfilling entrance requirements. Included among the major activities of the project were a comparative analysis of United Kingdom and United States policies and practices with respect to…

Focusing on the 1988-89 academic year, this report outlines the procedures, actions, and findings of Germanna Community College's (GCC's) Assessment Steering Committee. Separate reports explain the methods and outcomes of assessments of the developmental studies program, general education curriculum, nursing program, and associate of applied…

A close relationship exists between children's capacity for learning in school (especially learning to read) and the amount and kind of reading aloud done by parents and teachers to children. Children's literature, especially the illustrations and the language contained in fine picture books, has the potential to provide six benefits that…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 17 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) the effects of metacognitive comprehension monitoring strategies on fourth grade students' reading comprehension and recall performance; (2) elementary school…

This action research project implemented and evaluated a program for improving student transfer of knowledge to real life experiences. The targeted population consisted of second, sixth, and tenth grade students in a Midwestern community located outside of a major city. Evidence suggested a need for this program as documented by teacher generated…

This case study explores the student teaching experience of a Spanish language teacher candidate through her own eyes. It sheds light on how the participants' prior learning experience and beliefs inform her initial practice, how she develops her teaching skills, what contextual factors affect her learning-to-teach process, and the sources from…

Describes a study that investigated the effects of end-user search experience on searching behavior in the use of an online information retrieval system by monitoring the QUICKLAW searches of University of Toronto law students over a one-year period. Highlights include hypothesis testing, error patterns, search speed, and attitudes. (Author/LRW)

Explores the effects of the attitudes and culture of Israeli-Jewish English-language students on their reading comprehension. Eighth-grade students read stories in Hebrew and English and answered questions both about the stories and their own attitudes. Reveals that culturally familiar texts boost reading comprehension scores. (MJP)

The purpose of this ethnographic study was to explore the development of belief systems as related to racial and ethnic identities of preservice teachers as they crossed cultural borders into science teaching. Data were collected throughout a yearlong teacher preparation program to learn how early life experiences and racial and ethnic identities…

A "Motivation" eliciting the "Aim" of each lesson initiates each lesson in the orthodox "developmental lesson-plan" that has dominated classroom instruction in NYC public schools for at least the past half-century. An action-research study of 38 lesson-plans (over 5 each from 5 teachers) drawn from student-teaching…

In this article, the author presents findings of a project that focused on identifying elements in the learning environment that promote numeracy outcomes. The project--"Numeracy Research and Development Initiative"--was undertaken in eight schools across a range of settings within the three schooling systems in Queensland and was…

Children whose homes are filled with books, whose parents read to them, and who have begun to understand the reading process have higher levels of reading skills and knowledge when they enter kindergarten than children who do not have such rich literacy experiences before entering school. This article describes a family literacy project developed…

This study's purpose was to determine the youth leadership life skills of Texas 4- H, FFA, and FCCLA members participating as school tour guides. Descriptive characteristics were evaluated to determine those affecting leadership life skills development. School tour guides participating in the exit-meeting during the 2004 San Antonio Livestock…

Despite the ethnic and linguistic diversity found in California's public schools, or because of it, in 1998 voters approved Proposition 227, a ballot initiative designed to dismantle bilingual education programs in the state. By the 2003-2004 school year, the California Department of Education reports that statewide 8,908 teachers were providing…

Children from non-English-speaking homes are doubly disadvantaged when learning English in school. They enter school with less prior knowledge of English sounds, word meanings, and sentence structure, and they get little or no reinforcement of their learning outside of the classroom. This article compares the classroom standard practice of…