School improvement in rural places cannot succeed without attention to the rural context of learning. Most especially, smaller schools need to be preserved and sustained in rural areas, particularly impoverished communities, for the sake of student achievement and personal development. This school improvement tool suggests the character of a "good…

The Bay Area Comer Development Program's "Readiness Five Phase Plan" was developed to bring the school sites involved in the Bay Area School Development Program (SDP) closer to the mission and goals of the program. To achieve this, a readiness assessment and checklists are used to determine if a site is ready to engage in the program. An…

During the past two decades, a convincing body of evidence has accumulated to indicate that unless children achieve minimal social competence by about the age of 6 years, they have a high probability of being at risk into adulthood in several ways. This digest presents a checklist of attributes of child social behavior that teachers are encouraged…

Popular films can be used successfully in a wide range of language, content, and culture classes. Creating support materials in order to use a movie in such a class is an enormous task, but with careful planning it can be broken into four manageable components: contemplation, selection, segmentation, and construction. This brief paper provides a…

Outdoor play is commonly believed to be an important form of play for young children. This book shows teachers, child care providers, and other adults who work with 2- to 8-year-olds how to design, equip, and maintain safe yet challenging playgrounds. The chapters are: (1) "Why Playgrounds?" exploring the elements and value of outdoor…

This document provides guidance on accommodations in secondary schools, concentrating on the needs of 11- to 16-year-old pupils. The guidance is intended to assist all those who may be involved in the briefing and design process. It discusses the issues that arise when considering both new and existing accommodations. The document covers the range…

Ideas about educational assessment are synthesized to construct a Quality Assessment Checklist that can be used to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of classroom assessments. Sound assessment begins with clear and appropriate learning targets. Once learning targets have been identified, they need to be matched with appropriate methods.…

This is a checklist of key items to get right when conducting a randomized controlled trial to evaluate an educational program or practice ("intervention"). It is intended as a practical resource for researchers and sponsors of research, describing items that are often critical to the success of a randomized controlled trial. A significant…

Examined was sameness behavior (an obsessive avoidance of any change) as a primary symptom of early infantile autism in a group of 32 psychotic children, 29 boys and 3 girls ranging in age from 3- to 11-years. (Author/DB)

Teachers at a school for emotionally disturbed children were given the IPC--i.e. they checked those characteristics that describe the "ideal" pupil and double-checked the five most important characteristics. When these teachers' responses were compared with those of fourth and fifth grade teachers in two public schools, a remarkable…

Proposes a tentative list of criteria, which on the whole characterize competent mathematics teachers of the disadvantaged, including academic preparation, pre-service internship, personality, and continuous professional growth. (Author/JM)

Describes an experimental music program which has been in operation at Linden Elementary School, Oak Ridge, Tennessee for the past four years. (Author/CB)

Rimland's Diagnostic Checklist for Behavior-Disturbed Children, Form E-2, a checklist method of diagnosing early infantile autism, is described and statistics cited to show Form E-2 effective in differentiating truly autistic from autistic-type children. (KW)

This article explains how check lists and videotapes can be used to provide feedback about students' performance in sports and physical education. The techniques described can be adapted for teaching most sports skills. Sample check lists for golf and tennis skills are included. (PP)

Critical review of Periodical Indexes, a computerized instructional package designed to strengthen student skills in using periodical indexes in the library. A sample of the Software Evaluation Checklist, developed by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, is included. (JJD)