The evaluation of distance education courses at the FernUniversitat was an important focus of interest during the initial stages of its development (1974-1980), when courses were being developed for five major departments and the number of students enrolled was increasing rapidly. Since teaching began immediately, a formative evaluation approach…

The Individualized Critical Skills Model (ICSM) is an individualized, systematic instructional process that emphasizes teaching severely handicapped learners relevant skills in the environment in which they would naturally occur. The manual is divided into three sections. The first section discusses the historical perspective of the ICSM and gives…

A study was conducted to explore the concept of distance education as it pertains to elementary and secondary education in Wisconsin and to make recommendations to the Wisconsin Superintendent of Public Instruction regarding its use. Four major problem areas are identified and recommendations are provided in this report. Problems related to…

The pro-active telephone-tutored delivery mode developed by the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology's Rural Library Training Project provides a model for increasing the completion rate of traditional correspondence courses, relieving the isolation factor associated with correspondence, and providing pacing while still allowing flexibility for…

The articles in this monograph focus on issues identified during participation in the U.S. Department of Education 1984 Teacher Incentive Structures Program, and the 1986 Project to Design Teacher Incentive Structures. Emphasis was on designing or adapting incentive structures for possible use in the school, community, or university. The following…

After an examination of the status of the use of media in the foreign language curriculum, the potential impact of video and computer-assisted language learning (CALL) is analyzed, and their advantages and disadvantages are charted. The role of the American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Proficiency Guidelines with respect…

This bibliography was prepared to stimulate discussion among the faculty of the General College of the University of Minnesota concerning the field of multicultural education and its impact upon the curriculum of the College. The bibliography lists resources and provides a conceptual framework for developing teaching materials and approaches to…

A needs assessment of the Grumman E-Beam Systems Group identified the requirement for additional skill mastery for the engineers who assemble, integrate, and maintain devices used to manufacture integrated circuits. Further analysis of the tasks involved led to the decision to develop interactive videodisc, computer-based job aids to enable…

To what extent and in what ways do issues about content and the teaching and learning of content figure in the conversations between novices and their mentors? This paper explores that question by means of four cases drawn from a large data set about two different first-year teacher programs, an induction program sponsored by a university and a…

This report describes instructional uses of computers, interactive videodisks, and related technologies in undergraduate and graduate nursing education and in continuing education and faculty development. Its principal aims are to document ongoing activities, to identify factors that inhibit technological applications in nursing education, and to…

Oral communication across the curriculum programs initiated at universities and colleges are likely to experience several problems, including high costs and heavy workloads for faculty. An Oral Communication Program (OCP) designed to overcome potential problems was instituted at Radford University, Virginia. Results of the program's first year…

A brief discussion of the need to define social studies is followed by methods for developing selection criteria for microcomputer programs in the social studies, a model for lesson development on a microcomputer, and evaluation criteria. The need for educators to carefully state what should be learned is emphasized in terms of controlling the…

A study was conducted to answer several research questions involving: (1) decision models used by teachers; (2) nature of preactive and interactive decisions made by teachers; (3) what governs teachers' decisions; (4) interaction between teachers' decision making and the need to maintain activity flow; (5) how teachers establish a "learning…

To assist managers of complex training systems in making decisions that result in changes in the existing training syllabus, this study provides a model for estimating and comparing the costs of training system components and of potential changes to the components. In the first part of the study, this assessment model is broken down into five…

This paper makes a distinction between the formative evaluation that can be carried out in the early stages of the development of educational television programs, i.e., from the emergence of the idea through the development of a script, and those that have to be executed in the later stages of development, i.e., during the production process. The…