In November 1986, the United States Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, which, in part, mandated a program granting legal status to certain undocumented residents who had been in the country since before January 1, 1982. The program involves a two-step process by which currently undocumented aliens are granted temporary and,…

This document describes a 3-day Wisconsin workshop on essential elements of instruction in vocational, technical, and adult education (VTAE). The workshop's content was based on the Univesity of California at Los Angeles' Teaching Model, which resulted from the work of Madeline Hunter. A three-page narrative describes some aspects of the model,…

The purpose of this study is to examine the training needs of caregivers of toddlers. Questions addressed include: (1) Is specialized training necessary? (2) Are caregivers receiving adequate training for providing appropriate environments for children of 1 or 2 years of age? (3) What are the obstacles and encouragements for caregivers of toddlers…

The Computerized Observation System (COS) is a software program which an observer can use with a portable microcomputer to document preservice and inservice teacher performance. Specific observable behavior such as appropriate questions and responses shown to increase student achievement are recorded as Low Inference Observation Measures. Time on…

This report describes a research effort and some preliminary findings on effective school practices as they apply to the Portland (Oregon) Public Schools' Education Consolidation and Improvement Act (ECIA) Chapter 1 program, which is a supplementary basic skills instructional program for low-achieving students. Nearly 60 hours of unsystematic…

The area of concern addressed in this paper was the effectiveness of the cooperating teacher in the student teaching process. It was felt that the cooperating teachers were not providing enough formal observational feedback to student teachers in the area of methodology. This paper describes a workshop to respond to that stated concern. It was…

Instructional communication research may be examined from the perspective of teacher effectiveness research, based on three dominant 20th-century philosophical traditions: logical empiricism, interpretive theories, and critical theory. Since at least 1896, scholars have used empirical research methodology (largely "logical empiricism," modeled…

In 1976, the Montgomery County Public Schools began the development of a kindergarten through grade 8 Instructional Program in Reading/Language Arts (IPR/LA) for teaching the English language arts. Goals of the effort were to improve reading and listening comprehension instruction and to improve program consistency across grades, schools, and…

For one school year, the classroom and playground social behaviors of normally developing and developmentally delayed children were analyzed for the occurrence of interactions across gender, across race and ethnicity, and across developmental condition. The potential impact of teachers' nonsexist language, and encouragement of interaction among…

Variability of attention to task and its relation to instructional contexts for learning disabled (LD) children was investigated. Subjects were 24 mainstreamed elementary grade LD children. The children's behaviors relating to academic engagement and the situational contexts in which they occurred were observed and coded in both the regular class…

The paper looks at rules for discourse in the classroom and how they may complement or conflict with each other in facilitating the learning of language disordered children in the classroom or therapy session. Six critical skills are identified which children need for a good teaching-learning interaction. They are: attention, turn taking,…

As standardized tests receive more critical scrutiny and fall into more disfavor, members of the educational community search for alternative measures of assessing schooling and learning. If one of the goals of education in a democracy is to encourage students to express, develop and share ideas, the discussion setting is a logical arena in which…

Beginning in the 1979-80 school year, a long-term staff development project was organized and implemented at Beaverton High School (Oregon). Project goals were to help teachers increase their sense of efficacy by: (1) acquiring and applying skills that would increase their competence in the planning and delivery of instruction; (2) increasing…

This paper examines aspects related to the validity of process-product research involving classroom observation and teacher effectiveness. Differences in categories, terminology, and definitions of five classroom observation instruments are delineated and discussed in relation to their various effects on the validity of process-product research…

Students of the Austin (Texas) Independent School District who had been in first through sixth grade and had been retained at some point in their school careers were eligible to attend the 1982 summer school for retainees. A total of 1,193 students were enrolled for at least part of the summer school, with a 94 percent attendance rate for the days…