The Pacific Island nations are in the process of transforming education to support all learners through the application of more inclusive approaches. In order to measure progress, they are working collaboratively to develop a set of local and contextually applicable indicators for inclusive education. This article reports the initial step in this…

Promoting self-determination has become an important aspect of the educational programs of students with disabilities. There is now a sufficient literature base to support some syntheses that enable researchers to judge their progress in this area to date and to provide direction for future research and practice. For this study, we conducted a…

The history of the ecological model, which views the handicapped child and special education intervention in the context of intricate relationships, is reviewed. (DB)

Literature published between 2000 and 2003 at the intersection between online learning and disability can be classified into didactic, descriptive, research, and opinion pieces. In this article, two research pieces surveying the literature are reviewed. The resounding theme throughout the literature is that improving accessibility of online…

This paper presents an overview of distance education technologies and a discussion of the potential benefits and abuses for special education of interactive television distance education. Technologies described include microcomputer systems, satellite transmission, and telephone lines as media transmitters. (Author/DB)

The review describes the advance organizer technique and reviews the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of advance organizers with both normal students and students classified as handicapped. Examples of advance organizers include the expository advance organizer, the comparative advance organizer, the graphic advance organizer, and…

This article reviews articles within this special issue on science education for students with disabilities, examining the articles in the context of current activities and resources in science education. Constructivism and alternative assessment techniques are seen as especially noteworthy movements in improving science teaching and learning.…

This paper discusses two approaches to designing and studying integrated media applications, relating each to current theories of learning and thinking. After a discussion of the "curriculum embellishment" and "break-the-mold" approaches, alternatives to decontextualized curricula are examined in the context of new and revised goals for learning.…

This paper examines the concept of "outcomes-based education" (OBE), how it was developed, how it relates to other current reforms that encompass the notion of outcomes, and how it relates to students with disabilities in theory and in practice. Outcomes-based education holds that all children can learn and succeed and that schools are…

This paper reports on the outcomes of the first in a series of three systematic literature reviews in inclusive education. The aims include establishing what research has been undertaken in the area of effective pedagogical approaches to enable children with special educational needs to be included in mainstream classrooms, synthesising themes in…

This article on inclusive education proposes a continuum of "explicit" to "implicit" instructional approaches, which expresses a range of amounts of teacher assistance provided and levels of expected student responsibility for learning. Research on such a continuum is reviewed and implications are drawn for instructional design in reading and…

Problems in providing educational services to minority and working-class special education students are discussed in the context of their experiences in the education system as a whole. The paper focuses specifically on prejudice, culturally inappropriate instruction, and what educators can do to improve the situation. (JDD)

This pamphlet provides an overview of the philosophical, legal, and research bases of responsible inclusion of students with disabilities in regular classes. Educators are urged to not disregard the continuum of service placement, which is legally required, but to recognize that most students with disabilities can be educated in regular classes in…

This review of performance assessment and special education considers forces influencing assessment changes, performance-based assessment as an alternative to traditional assessment, current use of performance assessment, a critique of performance assessment, the future of performance assessment, and the role of curriculum and teachers. An action…

The monograph summarizes findings of effective schools research, information on the characteristics of effective classrooms, and descriptions of the methodological and conceptual issues related to school improvement projects. The impact of the school effectiveness literature on classroom instruction is discussed, and implications for the…