The strong association established between attention skills and school performance has led to increased research in understanding the development of children's attentional processes. How attention develops during early childhood is crucial to understanding partly why children enter school with varying readiness skills. This Snapshot highlights the…

This book presents a reality-based approach to classroom instruction designed to help learners at all levels achieve lifelong success. It offers teaching strategies, activities, and applications to enhance student achievement, stressing the importance of learning through discovery, creativity, application, adaptation, and high level thinking. It…

This survey presents statistics on secondary school student culture by school district and race/ethnicity, using data from approximately forty thousand secondary school students in Minority Student Achievement Network districts. Information is presented in six areas: (1) "Family Background Resources and Living Arrangements (racial/ethnic…

This workshop was the first of two designed for the purpose of developing specific recommendations for a program of research on adolescent literacy. Together these workshops, jointly sponsored by government and private sector entities, will draw on the knowledge and experiences of researchers and practitioners who work with adolescents and their…

This action research project investigated the effectiveness of having immediate access to grades, attendance, homework, and teachers' comments for parents and students alike. There are many involved in the success of children including the administration, teachers, parents and the students themselves. Advancing technology helps students become…

This case study examines the motivation of two intermediate foreign language learners engaged in a remote language exchange partnership. A learner of English in Japan and a learner of Japanese in Australia completed language exchange activities using the telephone, Internet text chat, and e-mail over 10 weeks. Quantitative and qualitative methods…

This action research project implemented and evaluated a 12-week program using cooperative learning and Multiple Intelligences to increase student motivation for learning. The targeted population consisted of elementary and middle school students in a low-socioeconomic community in northern Illinois. The problem of motivation was documented in the…

The goal of the Language Integrated Technology Grant Project (LIT) consortium was to help provide critical components of successful reading programs through a combination of proven computer/print programs and teacher training. Through leadership provided by the Educational Service District 113 (Olympia, Washington), the LIT consortium of schools…

This report presents the findings of a study conducted by the Center for Research in Educational Policy (CREP) on the second year of implementation of the Small Schools Initiative at the Manual High School Complex. The major goal of this research was to evaluate perceived progress and outcomes at all three high schools. The design and methodology…

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the benefits of on-line learning for adult learners and to further demystify three common misconceptions concerning on-line learning: students certainly do receive support from their on-line professors, the professor is pro-active rather than passive, and students may be more motivated to learn than in…

Theorists have traditionally described motivation in terms of approach and avoidance tendencies. In contrast, goal orientation research has focused primarily on two approach goals: demonstrating ability (performance-approach) and developing ability (task). A scale to assess the goal of avoiding the demonstration of lack of ability…

The impact of technology on teaching is explored. Technology alone cannot affect the ways in which teachers and students interact, but it can affect teacher roles in several ways. Teachers may feel that computers will replace them, or they may regard technology as just another tool. Some teachers believe that technology can transform curriculum,…

A program was developed and implemented to improve and motivate students' writing in the elementary grades. Research data suggests probable causes for lack of student motivation and progress in writing. These causes include: overloaded and product driven curriculum, lack of appropriate teacher training, time-consuming and subjective grading…

Achieving literacy, while often one of the greatest challenges a child can face, is one of the most important elements in building a base for success in education and in life. Three main strategies are found to be parts of the process of how children learn to read: (1) developing phonemic awareness through the use of phonics techniques; (2) being…

Intended for teachers of grades 2-6, this book offers methods to help students become lifelong readers. The book's instructions include emphasizing respect for the readers' choices of books and their own unique response to the literature. Information is intended to promote thoughtful analysis of what has been read and to validate readers'…