The Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and private foundations, and invests in research and education to help rural communities meet the challenges of today's global society through a multidisciplinary network of university research and extension faculty, policy makers, and rural…

This action research project sought to improve student motivation in order to increase academic performance among eighth graders in an urban community. Evidence of academic underachievement and lack of student participation was documented by means of teacher observations, incomplete and missing assignments, and student questionnaires. Student,…

This book offers suggestions for developing well-planned and effective computer-mediated distance learning. Part 1 lays the foundation for a distance education framework. Chapter 1 explores issues involved in teaching and learning when learning moves into the online environment. Chapter 2 looks at the essence of the framework--the importance of…

The book offers an international collection of best practices that address the particular interests and demands of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) and English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) teaching at the secondary school level. It includes instructional activities that are created by ESL and EFL teachers and are classroom-tested and…

This paper describes an innovative interdisciplinary course offered at the University of New Orleans (Louisiana) which involved community members as full-fledged partners with students and university faculty in service-learning-by-doing teams. Each student, with the assistance of a faculty member and a community partner, identified an opportunity…

Many project teams in organizations are highly structured, members have clearly defined roles, and they possess knowledge about how to effectively manage their projects and meetings. On the other hand, students in educational environments lack significant experience working in teams. Therefore, student teams are often poorly structured, members…

Under the federal School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994, Colorado has created a system of partnerships linking employers and public schools. The state's School-to-Career Partnership started in October 1995 with a 5-year, $24 million grant. Grant funds are distributed by the state to local partnerships of education, business and industry, and…

These curriculum guidelines for work-based learning programs in high schools in Washington define the parameters of work-based learning programs while allowing local agencies the freedom to tailor their programs to meet their own needs. The guidelines have been produced in a joint venture of teachers, students, business representatives,…

This book profiles extended-care programs in Catholic schools. It features articles submitted by graduates of the National Catholic Educational Association's Elementary/Middle School Principals Academies. Each of the 12 articles details an established extended-care program. Typically, these programs are part educational, part recreational, and…

In less than five years, the California State Library-sponsored InFoPeople project connected 46% of California's public libraries to the Internet and established a highly regarded, sustained training program to assist librarians in taking advantage of the new networked resources and services. The primary objective of this Stage II report was to…

This report presents ideas on the campus to workplace transition gathered from five regional workshops conducted in 1998-99. It notes that although business and higher education agree on the importance of changes in this transition, major differences exist between how these two sectors propose to accomplish such improvements. The workshops suggest…

The act of exemplary teaching requires the orchestration of subject matter knowledge and pedagogical knowledge with pedagogical content knowledge. If this last component is not sufficiently present, then we may be quite efficient in presenting students with rote information. If this last component is sufficiently present (and carried out well),…

This paper describes one model of school reconstruction, which includes a professional development school, being implemented at Celebration School in Celebration, Florida. The description highlights the educational practices and daily learning experiences of students at Celebration. The narrative provides a picture of the philosophical foundation…

The Internet-Based Shared Environment for Expeditions (iExpeditions) is both a development effort of the Center for Technology Innovations in Education, University of Missouri, Columbia, and a research project conducted in partnership with Motorola, Inc. and a researcher at Brigham Young University (Utah). The project seeks to develop and…

One mandate of the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 requires that students develop a writing portfolio. Ultimately, schools must elevate the average performance level of students' portfolios to the benchmark of "proficient." During site visits to 29 schools, 36 indicators were identified that differentiated writing scores and…