Empowerment implies that student teachers become more confident and autonomous learners, with more responsibility for, and control over, their learning. Traditionally, student teachers have been a disempowered group, as teacher educators have tended to emphasize the voice of experts rather than novices and the voice of theory rather than practice.…

Many teacher educators share the concern that preservice teachers on predominantly white campuses are inadequately prepared to teach effectively in a culturally pluralistic society. This descriptive, exploratory study examined the experiences, observations, and reflections of 10 nontraditional, post-baccalaureate students seeking teacher…

In the 1984-85 school year, the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) began to actively encourage Pennsylvania school districts to reform their teacher supervision/evaluation (TS/E) procedures. To obtain data necessary for developing TS/E models, the PDE commissioned Research for Better Schools (RBS) to conduct a study of five school…

This guide to using the tools of online databases, telecommunications, and CD-ROM technology in the educational environment provides a practical introduction to the concepts and importance of information literacy and high technology resource-based learning. It also describes the drawbacks and advantages of these tools from an educator's viewpoint.…

The University of Georgia (UG) conducted a complete campus building condition evaluation survey in 1989 that identified the nature and magnitude of the capital renewal/deferred maintenance requirements for each campus building. The survey design was based on a model developed by Harlan Bareither at the University of Illinois. Data were collected…

As part of a larger examination of student perspectives in science, social studies and communication arts, this report summarizes yearlong classroom observations and end-of-year interviews of fifth-grade students to examine ways in which students integrated their knowledge in meaningful ways. Teacher-researchers involved in the overall project…

The place education has been assigned in the national development programs of 10 nations is discussed, the problems that these countries have encountered in managing education are examined, and the measures adopted to solve educational problems are assessed. Included are the following papers: (1) "The Nature of National Development…

The method used by the American Graduate School of International Management (AZ) to select participants for internships with Japanese companies is described and some case studies are offered as illustrations. The composition of the selection committee is noted, the interview process is discussed briefly (focusing on elicitation of student…

This paper presents a study of two intellectually gifted students (ages 6 and 14) who have cerebral palsy and are unable to communicate orally. Results of participant observation, interviews, and document analysis revealed that: (1) gifted students who have cerebral palsy and do not speak exhibit indicators of cognitive ability that are similar to…

A case study was done to understand the possible obstacles to the transfer and retention of community college students who have moved to the university. The study focused on the perceptions of a group of community college transfer students about the transfer process and their new academic world. The students all transferred from a large, public,…

This case study describes a 2-year (1988-90) demonstration dropout prevention program, a collaboration between a rural school and a university. The dropout prevention program attempts to identify effective teaching strategies that will increase the academic successes of at-risk sixth-grade students and expand the use of those strategies among the…

This paper considers whether ethnicity is a social construction that is constantly being recreated in a nexus of shifting social relations rather than a set of perceptions and behaviors that remain constant and stem from a youth's membership in an ethnic group. Student responses about ethnicity from a larger study of student role and engagement in…

The Communicative Development of Toddlers with Cerebral Palsy (COCP) project developed an assessment-intervention program for non-speaking children with cerebral palsy. The goals of the project's Assessment-Intervention protocol are to teach the child to communicate in an appropriate, effective, and efficient way in different situations and with…

The purpose of this study was to describe and interpret teacher decision-making with ethnically diverse students. A new paradigmatic theoretical framework formed through the confluence of constructivism, multiculturalism, the teacher-as-decision-maker, and semiology guided the research. The research site was a suburban middle school located in the…

Seymour Papert, who holds the Lego Chair for Learning Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, looks back over a decade during which American schools acquired more than three million computers and assesses progress and resistance to progress. Stories about visionary teachers who have used computers to enrich learning provide a…