Each year, fifth graders at Kamehameha Elementary School produce a play about American history. Students do research, write scripts and songs, design costumes and the stage sets, act, and promote the event. The article explains how the students accomplished this over several months and notes how the activity tied into their schoolwork. (SM)

Field trips allow students to learn from direct experience. Teachers must make what occurs before and after the trip meaningful in order to maintain what students learned on the trip. The article describes three field trips for Hawaiian students, explaining the necessary preparation and follow through to make them effective. (SM)

In October 1994, legislation established a requirement that Public Health Services (PHS) programs spend at least 0.2% of appropriated funds on program evaluation. Legislative changes are a result of a study of the use of PHS set-aside funds from 1988 through 1992. They are intended to encourage more and better evaluation. (SLD)

The impact of student characteristics on performance was examined in an integrative business policy capstone course that used various pedagogical techniques. Results from a covariance structure analysis of a process model with 381 subjects demonstrate the importance of individual student characteristics on student performance. (SLD)

A brief summary of standard setting knowledge is presented, derived from about 20 methods that utilize a judgmental review process, the approach most relevant to the standard-setting strategies proposed in this special issue. Criteria for judging effectiveness and critiques of the methods discussed in the issue are offered. (SLD)

Notes that performance and portfolio assessment are being used more widely and have gained acceptance as "good" assessment. Presents annotations of eight conference papers and other materials in the ERIC database concerning authentic literacy assessment. (RS)

Investigates the effects of three study conditions (review only, study questions, and analytic essay writing) on high school students' writing and learning from text. Analyzes these strategies with regard to their impact on student concept application, immediate recall, delayed recall, and recall of manipulated content. Finds writing offers…

Describes the difficulties of teaching a reading class in a prison. Emphasizes the importance of sharing and of teaching based on democratic principles. Shows how using collaboration, perspective sharing, and children's literature helped to bond the class. Concludes that teaching inside a prison is different from teaching in a regular institution,…

Employs reverse tracer techniques to identify alternative training paths for selected skilled and semiskilled occupations in Colombia. Shows that workers pursue various alternative training paths to acquire essential occupational skills. Strong public intervention in training markets should be discouraged, as choices would be narrowed and the…

Relates a poet's experiences in graduate school, and the poetry he wrote in the 1970s. Discusses methods and techniques for poetry writing in the classroom. Suggests topics for a series of poetry exercises: moebius strip, poetry sights, shadow poems, poetry chair, chopstick quatrains, poetry shirt, poem wrapping the school, word beads, and a haiku…

Presents an electronic conversation which critiques holistic scoring procedures. Explores the different ways people in English are taught to read. Offers the idea of minimal holistic scoring in which raters make a specific educational decision rather than supply a number on a rating scale. Asks educators to focus more time on teaching than…

This article describes the first phase of a project to develop an empirically based scale to help multidisciplinary teams decide whether individual children need to start or continue braille instruction. Teachers and other practitioners (n=225) rated child characteristics on the extent to which they reflected the need for braille instruction, and…

A listing of 31 classroom adjustments for students with attention and learning problems are grouped within 9 recommendations of the U.S. Department of Education regarding the needs of these students in general or special education. Principles addressed include structure; effective communication of instructions; behavior management; class…

This article reviews recent developments in modern language teaching for pupils with special educational needs, describes a course in Suffolk (England) for nonspecialists involved in teaching of French, and outlines the forms of support currently available. (Author/DB)

Four groups of 12 young adult deaf subjects evaluated 2 aspects of lipreading training: source of video feedback (self or trainer) and timing of feedback (during or after speech production). Results substantiate the beneficial effects of multisensory feedback by practicing lipreading of one's own speech production. (Author/JDD)