A practicum was developed to address deficiencies in students' writing skills. The program goals were to assess the students' abilities to use prewriting strategies, to use supportive elements in writing, and to evaluate students' progress using pre- and post-attitude surveys and writing samples. The target group was 20 eighth-grade journalism…

This paper reviews research on preservice teachers' need for a multicultural education program, finding that preservice teachers who have not developed their awareness, knowledge, and skills for working with diverse populations will be inadequately prepared to meet the classrooms of a diverse society. A survey was conducted concerning students'…

In this study Dutch subjects with four different levels of expertise (24 second-year, 24 fourth-year, 24 sixth-year medical students, and 24 internists with at least 4 years of experience) studied, diagnosed, and explained four clinical cases. Diagnostic accuracy increased with the increasing level of expertise. The number of concepts used and the…

This study investigated whether there were differences in science teachers' efficacy, perceptions of support and knowledge of developmentally appropriate curriculum and instruction in the two organizationally different settings of the junior high and the middle school. Teacher questionnaires were used as a source of data. From 127 returned…

External representations have a great impact on what and how students learn. One key manner in which environments can operate upon novices' knowledge is through helping them ground their problem solving in an understanding of the situation embodied by the problem. In this paper, students' difficulties in microeconomics problem solving were…

This practicum was designed to train eight adolescents with specific learning disabilities (SLD) about their legal rights and responsibilities, through a scenario-based program presented in the classroom as part of a transition program. The practicum involved the development of 22 scenarios, a pretest and posttest, and discussions and role-playing…

The effects of closed-captioned educational video as an instructional tool for improving reading comprehension and learning retention for students in college developmental studies programs were studied. Subjects were 168 students in Developmental Studies English and reading classes at a regional university in the Southeast and 168 first-year…

This study investigates how informed New York State middle school teachers (N=190) in public schools are about school law and case law which impacts on them in their professional roles. The study focuses on four areas: teacher rights and responsibilities, student rights, instruction, and health and safety. In addition to assessing subjects'…

The conference reported in this document, jointly sponsored by the Queensland Board of Teacher Registration and the Centre for Research in Literacy, arose out of public concern about literacy standards and claims that higher literacy levels will be needed in an increasingly technological society--concerns that make it necessary for educators to…

Several leaders in education have concluded that the United States should have some form of national achievement testing. Such tests are proposed as part of the "America 2000" education strategy. Believing that the experience of other countries will be useful to educators, policymakers, and concerned citizens, the National Endowment for…

This practicum was designed to: improve the skills of personnel working with students with severe and/or profound handicaps in junior high school; to improve staff development; and to increase the consistency of services offered in a community-based instruction program for K-12. A needs assessment survey of 10 staff members determined the level of…

The purpose of this study was to gauge the need for teaching preservice teachers about sex stereotyping and to determine whether a general or specific teaching approach would be more effective. The sample consisted of 50 students from two sections of a core teacher-training course at the University of Utah. Information about stereotyping was…

One of the main objectives in health education in the New Zealand national curriculum is that students should be helped to take responsibility for their own health. However, most decisions about health programmes in primary schools are made by adults. This paper reports findings from a study which sought the views of primary children about their…

Mathematics is usually seen as a field in which there is value-free. Such a situation causes only a few studies about values teaching to be done in mathematics education. But, mathematics is a field that has various values in it, and that must be considered seriously from this perspective. Values are taught implicitly rather than explicitly in…

Questions are raised about conventional notions of social work education by introducing field-derived data of how social workers use knowledge in everyday worklife, particularly in the field. Two typical social work units (public and private) totalling 24 social workers were the main foci for data collection, and additional subjects and social…