Canada's National Literacy Secretariat (NLS) develops innovative partnerships to involve voluntary and national organizations, governments, business, and labor in a national effort to make Canada a more literate society. The two main objectives of the NLS are to promote a variety of opportunities for people to improve their reading and writing…

This paper compares and analyzes features of the models represented in five efforts to provide coordinated services for children and families located in five cities in an effort to determine how best to study these programs in the future. The programs are: (1) the Minneapolis Youth Trust (Minnesota), a city-wide partnership of member…

A classroom study in two advanced Chinese language courses compared the effectiveness of two instructional strategies: (1) proficiency-based instruction through cooperative learning (Chinese 405) and (2) "prochievement," a hybrid, performance-based strategy derived from both proficiency and achievement approaches (Chinese 406). Subjects…

The critical thinking curriculum used in the four-year business degree program at the Auckland Institute of Technology Faculty of Commerce in New Zealand is described. The design of the business program is modeled on the authors' view of critical thinking as concerned with the intellectual maturity of the whole person. Key intellectual standards…

On the surface, educational tracking may seem like a useful tool for allowing students to work at their own pace, and to avoid discouraging competition, but abuses of the tracking idea have arisen through biased placement practices that have denied equal access to education for minority students. The articles in this issue explore a number of…

The recent movement to integrate social services into schools to serve at-risk students is hampered by the proliferation of highly specialized human services. Each had different organizational approaches, one bureaucratic and the other communal. A study examined the Center on Organization and Restructuring of Schools' (CORS) data on 24…

A study identified the current structure and status of school-community partnership programs and their relationship to partnership program success. Data were drawn from a survey of all partnership directors who coordinate partnerships between multiple schools and multiple businesses (1,875) in K-12 public schools in the United States. Highlights…

A study determined the effects of Whole Language Immersion, a pedagogy rooted in Whole Language and English as a Second Language on two sections of eleventh-grade students in Sumter County, Alabama, defined as at-risk by the Alabama Exit Examination. For 10 weeks, the control group was taught grammar while the experimental group underwent language…

The Miscellaneous section of the proceedings contains the following 15 papers: "Selling to the Sellers: An Analysis of Advertising in 'Campaigns & Elections,' 1980-1994" (Michael S. Sweeney); "From 'Seventeen' to 'Sassy': Teen Magazines and the Construction of the 'Model' Girl" (Lisa Duke); "Survey Data Indicate Some…

This study was designed to assess the effects of a specific cooperative learning strategy in an introductory college business information systems course. The cooperative approach's impact on student achievement and on a number of personal and social attributes was examined. A total of 117 college sophomores and freshmen enrolled in 3 sections of…

This document is designed for education, government, and community leaders as they collaborate to provide information access for students by establishing a technology infrastructure within schools. Overviews of issues, appropriate questions to consider, and lists of recommendations seek to put the non-technology literate end-user, who might now be…

Developed by the Learning Resource Centres (LRC) Project Team at Sir Sanford Fleming College, in Ontario, Canada, this report presents a model for establishing LRCs at the college. The first section reviews the need for LRCs, including the provision of lifelong learning and expected funding decreases for traditional operations. The next sections…

This paper explores the concept of combining collaborative action research, used in examining teacher behaviors, with group dynamics, used to facilitate new ideas and increase motivation. Specifically, the study examines the effort by one team of middle school teachers to conduct teacher team collaborative research. After reviewing the literature…

In cooperative learning, children are assigned to small groups to work on curriculum-based tasks while teachers move among the groups to offer assistance and to monitor progress. Despite the benefits and appeal of this learning method, it has been demonstrated that not all cooperative learning groups are equally successful in the classroom. In…

This report describes the outcomes of research that investigated school reform, school-linked services, parent involvement, and community school programs in schools in 36 states. Results found that services were often added on to school sites without any intent to integrate them with school reform; teachers were not directly involved in services;…