A rationale is offered for including life skills in curricula for students with special needs. Life skills are defined as encompassing daily living, personal/social, and occupational skills. Daily living skills include: managing personal finances, selecting and managing a household, caring for personal needs, safety awareness, preparing and…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in geography is a periodic survey of geographic knowledge and skill of students at grades 4, 8, and 12. The first NAEP in geography was conducted in 1994 and the second in 2001. Like the 1994 assessment, the 2001 assessment probed students' ability to recall, understand, analyze, and interpret…

This digest asserts that the question of coach preparation and training has become a priority issue for many schools and communities, though the research is limited. It examines reasons to have coach education; the scope of sport participation; the status of coach education and training in the United States; National standards for coach education;…

Noting that speech is not simply basic communication, this digest discusses ways in which teachers can help children develop oral language proficiency. The digest holds that speech involves thinking, knowledge, and skills, and that it requires practice and training. After setting out three criteria for oral language competence--fluency, clarity,…

Graphical representations play an important role in both science and mathematics education. Graphs can summarize very complex information or relationships very effectively. Although graphs are explicitly taught in mathematics classrooms as an end in themselves, many subject areas such as science or social studies utilize graphs to represent and…

This digest focuses on meeting the educational needs of recent Asian Pacific American (APA) immigrants. Newcomers usually have various levels of English proficiency, and many find school rules incomprehensible because they differ so widely from their previous experiences. In addition, American teachers expect children to be interactive, creative,…

Teacher leaders often teach full- or part-time while assuming leadership responsibilities. Also, they have often learned new roles just by doing the tasks demanded by those roles. A more systematic approach to helping teachers develop the requisite skills for assuming leadership roles (e.g. department chairs, team and grade leaders, and curriculum…

An ERIC digest considers several approaches to community study within the social studies curriculum. Material is divided into four sections. Following an introduction, "A rationale for community study" outlines skills and concepts that can be presented through community study and presents the rationale that community study can provide…

This digest discusses the professional development of foreign language teachers at a time when the foreign language teaching profession is facing a number of new challenges, such as a rapidly changing student clientele, the development of national standards for foreign language education, and advances in technology. The first section of the digest…

Over the past 20 years, library media professionals have worked to move from teaching isolated library skills to teaching integrated information skills. Effective integration of information skills has two requirements: (1) the skills must directly relate to the content area curriculum and to classroom assignments; and (2) the skills themselves…

Civic education "means explicit and continuing study of the basic concepts and values underlying our democratic political community and constitutional order" (Butts 1988, 184). It draws its content chiefly from four disciplines: political science, jurisprudence, history, and economics. Political science and jurisprudence provide an…

The essence of a healthy democracy is open dialogue about issues of public concern. An integral part of the training of young citizens, therefore, includes the discussion of controversial social, political, and economic policies. The use of classroom discussions as a pedagogical technique to examine controversial issues is explored by considering:…

For Mexican American students, grade-level reading and overall academic achievement decline, as measured by standardized tests, as they progress through the educational system. By grade seven, 65% of Mexican American students fail one or more grade levels below expected achievement. To reverse this trend of academic failure, teachers need to use…

Although 6 of the 20 fastest growing occupations are associated with high technology, only about 7 percent of all new jobs projected for the remainder of the century will be in high-tech areas. Bureau of Labor Statistics data indicate that far more job openings will occur in low- and entry-level occupations than in highly skilled or professional…