This talk addresses the connections between rural life and education research centered on rural places. It's informed by the author's experience of all three realms--life, education, and schooling. The author discusses how rural education consists of meanings related to the rural lifeworld as those issues confront the conventional agenda for…

Colleges, like corporations, spend millions each year on information technology products and services to support academic programs and administrative services. A good deal of these dollars were not part of institutional budgets not long ago. In this context, textbook economics suggest that colleges and universities should be "more productive"…

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…

A prolegomenon--a "critical discussion to introduce and interpret an extended work"--exactly describes the purpose of this essay, since the Appalachian Collaborative Center for Learning, Assessment, and Instruction in Mathematics (ACCLAIM) is very much an extended work. This essay develops a tentative theoretical framework to help represent…

Since the Universal PreKindergarten (UPK) legislation was passed in New York in 1997, the Early Childhood Strategic Group has worked to support full program implementation including providing information to community-based organizations on combining funds from different funding streams to extend UPK services to a full day and to enhance program…

Despite persistent media headlines about extreme cases of child abuse and neglect, the public remains largely uninformed about the developmental status of children affected by this tragic problem. The research brief draws on available data and recent research to summarize what is known about these outcomes in several critical areasphysical and…

Noting that sociocultural approaches to cognitive development provide valuable insights into the influences on learning of relationship and cultural variables, this book discusses recent theory and research on the social context of cognitive development. The book takes the view that the social settings in which children live and grow provide both…

Noting that comprehension instruction is widely recognized as an essential component of developing students' pleasure and profit from reading, this book presents 25 essays on comprehension instruction that summarize current research and provide best-practice guidelines for teachers and teacher educators. Each chapter in the book presents key…

The purpose of this literature review is to identify and address major themes in the distance education literature, particularly as they relate to interactive television (ITV) and student satisfaction. Major themes include satisfaction based on site-type, previous research biases, faculty-student interaction, characteristics of satisfied learners,…

The National Postsecondary Education Cooperative has sponsored two working groups on student outcomes, one exploring the issue from a policy perspective and the other, from a data perspective. This report presents the results of the data perspective case studies, discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the "state of the art" in student…

This report presents the implementation plans recommended by the Implementation Task Force (ITF) of the National Commission on Allied Health (NCAH) and reviews the purpose, goals, and impact of each plan. Chapter 1 introduces the NCAH and ITF and provides an overview of the role of allied health in today's health care environment and how that role…

Encouraged by evidence linking quality early care/education programs and improved student outcomes, a variety of school readiness programs and initiatives have been created. This report reviews and synthesizes evaluation studies conducted on early childhood interventions, focusing on programs emphasizing a school readiness goal. The report…

Research on parents has shown the critical contribution that linguistic input plays in fostering early literacy, but there have been no systematic studies of the literacy of the early care and education workforce and its role in fostering quality early learning environments. This report examines the literacy levels of early childhood educators in…

The 21st century may become known as the era of lifelong learning and lifelong working. Retirement, the end stage of a linear working life, may be replaced with a learning, working, leisure, working, learning life cycle. Forced retirements and early retirement incentives have contributed to the decline of expertise in the workplace. Inflation,…

This monograph summarizes discussions focusing on postsecondary diversity at two regional meetings attended by senior representatives of 22 state higher education agencies. The meetings addressed the effects of recent challenges to affirmative action and discussed the actions institutions are taking or are contemplating in the face of these…