Leisure service providers can help enhance the lives of people with mental retardation. By complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) guidelines, recreation facilities and services can be designed and structured to accommodate the needs of individuals with disabilities, enhancing their sense of competence and self-determination as…

Investigates scientific reasoning skills used by students in a naturalistic collaborative writing context and changes in students' reasoning discourse over time. Findings suggest that an understanding of socially constructed scientific reasoning skills is important for designing meaningful collaborative activities and assessments in science. (LZ)

Carried out an investigation to identify conceptions of some components of worldview held by science student teachers (n=48) in a South African context. Explores relationships among worldviews, student characteristics, and scientific concepts. Reports that students' conceptions of time and distance were nonmechanistic and psychologically bound and…

Focus group interviews assessed African American teens' and adults' (ages 13 to 65-plus) perceptions and beliefs about exercise. Many subjects believed that African Americans performed physical labor at work and needed rest rather than exercise during free time. Many considered exercise a physical stressor and believed friends had the greatest…

Describes a study that investigated the effects of flowcharts utilizing maplike symbols on performer efficiency in completing a complex procedural task. The effectiveness of instructional flowcharts is discussed; map learning is examined; and data on response times for three presentation formats (i.e., map, flowchart, and list) and four levels of…

Middle School Math Project at Education Development Center in Newton, Massachusetts, puts industry representatives into classroom to free teachers for professional development and to show students real-life applications of science and math. Although the program is no magic bullet for achieving teacher professionalism, this innovative approach buys…

This study, involving 11 young children with mild disabilities, found that, on reduction of teacher attention, children in 2 classrooms performed their reading tasks appropriately whereas children in the third classroom did not maintain on-task behavior with minimal teacher support. On implementation of a simple checksheet procedure, three of the…

Guidelines for college publications professionals seeking to improve their productivity include these: set priorities; consider the consequences of each project; spend minimal time on trivial tasks; focus on your goal; identify the slowest task, which may limit a project's effectiveness; make appointments; avoid taking work home; and schedule…

Describes professional development activities for adjunct faculty instituted at College of the Canyons in California to improve teaching and strengthen ties between college and faculty at reasonable cost and with minimal bureaucracy. The Associate Program includes Instructional Skills and Advanced Teaching Workshops and a teaching analysis. (DMM)

Fourth graders with language and learning disabilities and nondisabled fourth graders were compared on tasks measuring primed picture-naming and item recognition. In the experiment, both presentation format and retention interval were manipulated. Results are discussed in terms of implications for disabled children's memory difficulties. (LB)

A British survey of 708 part-time graduate students in the social sciences found that a typical student studies about 15 hours a week, works full-time in education, health, or local government, receives some employer tuition assistance, and is given one-half to 1 day release time a week for studies. (Author/MSE)

The intensification thesis of change in teachers' workload and responsibilities suggests teachers' work is increasingly intensified, with teachers expected to respond to greater pressures and multiplying innovations under stable or deteriorating conditions. The article presents data from a study of how elementary teachers used newly provided…

Two decades after helping a school begin the transition to middle level, observations are made of the results of middle school planning, implementation, and evaluation. Chief areas of focus were interdisciplinary teaming, block scheduling, exploratory activities, and an adviser-advisee arrangement. (MLF)

This study of 241 students found that at-risk low-socioeconomic status (SES) students involved in classwide peer tutoring from grades 1-3 spent more time in academic instruction and engagement and performed better on Metropolitan Achievement Test subtests than an at-risk control group and a nonrisk comparison group of higher SES students.…

Examines, through a longitudinal study, the temporal correspondences of 4 Japanese children, aged 7 to 11, in the attainment of specific milestones in play and language. All children proceeded through the same sequence of stages, but the rate of development was different depending on their environment. (34 references) (GLR)