A research study was conducted to identify barriers to enrollment in and expansion of apprenticeships and traineeships in the western region of Melbourne, Australia. Data were collected through conducting six focus groups (a total of 180 tenth- and twelfth-grade students) from six schools in three Local Government Areas; surveying 400 local…

This book outlines the principles of planning, implementing, and evaluating successful professional meetings and conferences in education. The following are among the topics discussed: (1) the knowledge base of effective meetings and conferences (nine principles held by effective meeting designers; characteristics of effective meetings and…

This guide, which is the product of a school-to-work (STW) leadership institute that was conducted to promote the development of collaborative initiatives linking STW with other school improvement strategies in Ohio, contains materials for and about worksite designing externships for educators. Included in the guide are the following items: STW…

The intent of this manual is to provide some templates and direction to schools that are looking for ideas of how to incorporate work experience into their curriculum for youth with disabilities. Hamilton Middle School served as a pilot site for one of the Rural Institute Transition Projects from 2006-2008. The school administration eagerly…

This report summarizes AISD's activities supporting accelerated reading and math instruction for students in grades kindergarten through 4 during the 2003-2004 school year.

Presents the results of a study contrasting conventional instruction with protocol lessons (a sequence of lessons based on developmental stages of learning with each lesson building on the previous one) concerning sketch maps. The students taught with the protocol lessons showed significant improvement over the other group. (MJP)

Presents a classroom teacher's experiences in preparing a fifth-grade class for the California Learning Assessment System (CLAS) test. Discusses an integrated curriculum approach, disagreements between teacher associations and the state department of education, and student and parent attitudes toward the test. (CFR)

Maintains that educational theorists have long advocated integrated, multidisciplinary curriculum development and instruction. Argues that the arts must maintain their integrity in the curriculum and be taught for their own sake, rather than serving as aids to instruction in other disciplines. (CFR)

Collaborative summer workshops between the Omaha (Nebraska) Public Schools and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln were held to improve the learning environment in multicultural science classrooms. Workshop themes included multicultural understanding, cooperative learning, and problem solving. Discusses attitude changes in student/teacher…

Shares the personal feelings of a Navajo woman who, as a child, had to squeeze her spirituality (which permeated all she did) into the inflexible, stifling mainstream curriculum. This education had little to do with justice, peace, and aliveness and had no connection with the spirit she brought from home. (SM)

Highlighting three exemplary schools, Steve Lacayo defines a good school as a visionary community of parents, teachers, and students. Afterschool programs, accessible technology, small classes, and improved teacher training are essential ingredients. Other articles discuss related issues: vouchers, standards, the phonics/whole-language debate,…

In this response to Charles Gagel's National Association of Industrial and Technical Teacher Educators (NAITTE) Membership Survey Report, the author states that the NAITTE of tomorrow cannot be the NAITTE of the past, as the organization is now feeling the effects of failing to change along with the field of teacher education. Of course, the…

This article summarizes the effects of NCLB on school districts based on four years of evaluations conducted by the Center on Education Policy as part of the most comprehensive and continuous overview being undertaken of that policy.

Two experiments investigated the effectiveness of computer-assisted prosody training, its generalization to novel sentences and segmental accuracy, and the relationship between prosodic and lexical information in long-term memory. Experiment 1, using a pretest-posttest design, provided native English-speaking learners of French with 3 weeks of…

Whether adolescents from immigrant and ethnic minority families will make a successful transition to adulthood hinges on their educational achievement, their acquisition of employable skills and abilities, and their physical and mental health. This article focuses on the extent to which diverse adolescents are prepared for adulthood according to…