In order to address the complex challenges facing the agricultural and natural resource industry, extension educators must collaborate with opinion leaders. Extension educators can use the assistance of opinion leaders in program design and implementation in order to best meet the needs of stakeholders and the public. Collaboration between…

Opinion leaders have been shown to have a significant amount of influence on their peers, yet there is little research examining how individual traits of opinion leaders are related. Generally the assumption is that these individuals share characteristics consistent with the literature; specifically that leaders tend to be optimistically oriented…

More than 20 states now allow community colleges to offer bachelor's degrees. Florida has been a trailblazer, with 14 community colleges currently authorized to offer bachelor's degrees, and 12 already doing so. Some critics have observed that community college baccalaureates will lead to low-quality degrees, take resources from needy students and…

Even though science says genetically modified (GM) foods are safe, many consumers remain skeptical of the technology. Additionally, the scientific community has trouble communicating to the public, causing consumers to make uninformed decisions. The Millennial Generation will have more buying power than any other generation before them, and more…

At three different institutions, public and private, in varying roles, I have found the very particular problem of how to inform micro-level classroom practices with macro-level disciplinary knowledge to be centrally important to our field's development and our students' learning--and singularly difficult to overcome. In this program profile, I…

This study sought to validate measures of caretaker readiness to facilitate meaningful participation in the Exceptional Student Education (ESE) educational decision-making process. School districts have encountered great difficulty in achieving the federal standards for meaningful participation in educational decision making due to a lack of…

Investigates the behavior and characteristics of effective consultants as perceived by a large sample of classroom teachers to determine their perceptions of the consultants' effectiveness, to compare the factor structure of the scale with previous research, and to investigate how the teachers' professional and demographic characteristics were…

This study asked elementary school teachers how educational policies affected their science instruction with a majority of English language learners. The study employed a questionnaire followed by focus group interviews with 43 third and fourth grade teachers from six elementary schools in a large urban school district with high populations of…

The values, beliefs, and objectives that form the core of the program at the Experimental School P.K. Yonge in the University of Florida are presented in this paper which is written in Spanish. This experimental school serves approximately 900 students from grades one through twelve. The function of the school is to conduct research to solve…

Presents guidelines for the development of competency-based curriculum formulated as a result of an automotive mechanics curriculum workshop. Listed are specific guidelines for content development, writing style, and illustration. (LRA)

Reactions to the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and debate over the president's replacement nomination, Judge John Roberts, Jr., of the D.C. Circuit, dominated this summer's Supreme Court recess. Subsequently, after Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist's death on September 3, 2005, President Bush nominated Roberts for the chief justice…

TWENTY 30-MINUTE TELEVISION PROGRAMS WERE PRODUCED ON FILM IN THE PERIOD FROM MAY 11 TO AUGUST 3, 1959, FOR THE PURPOSES OF (1) ACQUAINTING THE YOUNG CHILD PRIOR TO ENTERING THE FIRST GRADE AS TO THE NATURE OF THE NEW ENVIRONMENT HE WILL ENCOUNTER, (2) ENCOURAGING THE DEVELOPMENT OF PROFICIENCY IN CERTAIN BASIC TASKS AND SKILLS FOR GROUP LIVING IN…

Project RETAIN (Retention in Education Technical Assistance and Information Network) is a Florida project to assist school districts through identification and dissemination of effective practices that keep students with mild disabilities in school. One part of the project attempted to establish a consensus among experts in the fields of…

Scenarios depicting both positive and negative alternative futures were prepared to serve as a source of ideas in this study of ways to improve education with less money. Included in this third volume are (1) a disaster scenario based on piecemeal, reactive solutions; (2) a scenario based on applications of "big media"; (3) a scenario…