Primary goals of the SWRL English Language and Concepts Program for Spanish-Speaking Children (LCS) are to teach Spanish-speaking children to communicate effectively in oral English language skills. An increasing amount of attention is given to the development of skills that prepare the children for future reading and writing in mathematics,…

To assess the effectiveness of television courses offered by the Coast Community College District and to determine the characteristics of the television students, data from 1,126 students during three semesters were obtained. Sources by which the data were collected were a post-course evaluation questionnaire, weekly course diaries that rated 10…

This guide was prepared during a 3-day institute to assist those involved in the initiation and continuance of joint in-service training between state Vocational Rehabilitation agencies and Disability Determination Units. The guide is organized around the major considerations in any training program, including: (1) content, which identifies the…

Pre- and post-course surveys of faculty and students participating in 8-week format courses at Austin Community College (ACC) in fall 1998 yielded the following recommendations: (1) offer more 8-week classes at more locations and class times; (2) build in class meetings to compensate for any time lost to holidays; (3) piggy-back, in the first and…

Western Illinois University's College of Education and Human Services is redesigning its undergraduate teacher education program. The program places volunteer freshmen in real classrooms for long-term observations and volunteer assistance, eventually leading up to a full range of teaching opportunities. Also, coursework is presented in an…

Reports the planning, implementation, and evaluation of a training program for foster grandparents employed at a residential center for disturbed children. Describes training objectives focused on the role of the foster grandparents in helping their charges to develop socially acceptable behavior. A cognitive problem-solving strategy was taught.…

In order to encourage instructors interested in collaborative classroom approaches, the College of Continuing Education at the University of Rhode Island sponsored a series of workshops and informal discussions. A telephone survey of faculty was undertaken to learn the ways they were using collaborative approaches in their courses. (MLW)

A socio-constructivist and experiential process for climate change education was experimented within two coastal communities of Eastern Canada with 39 students 13 and 14 years of age. The pedagogical process, based on local observation of climate change, Duit's conceptual change theory (1999) and experiential learning, aimed for the improvement of…

"Evaluation Theory, Models, and Applications" is designed for evaluators and students who need to develop a commanding knowledge of the evaluation field: its history, theory and standards, models and approaches, procedures, and inclusion of personnel as well as program evaluation. This important book shows how to choose from a growing…

A logic model, also called a conceptual model and theory-of-change model, is a visual representation of how a program is expected to "work." It relates resources, activities, and the intended changes or impacts that a program is expected to create. Typically, logic models are diagrams or flow charts with illustrations, text, and arrows that…

Instructors have been using small group learning for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Appearing under a variety of names, including, most prominently, collaborative learning and cooperative learning, it is, in essence, "the instructional use of small groups so that students work together to maximize their own and each other's…

This article presents an interview with Katrina Bledsoe, a senior research associate with Planning, Research & Evaluation Services (PRES) Associates in Washington, D.C. Dr. Bledsoe was a faculty member in the Psychology Department at The College of New Jersey. She was trained under Stewart Donaldson at Claremont Graduate University (CGU) and…

Program evaluators need methods that can be used in a variety of situations to help gather data. Photolanguage is one such technique that uses black-and-white photographs to elicit responses from individuals. It is particularly useful in situations where the respondents may give restricted or only minimal data. This article provides the…

Although young people in 50 U.S. states and 21 countries learn about water resources through Project WET (Water Education for Teachers), few researchers have conducted summative evaluations of the program. The authors employed a partitioned, or differential, treatments design in which two groups of 6th-grade students received overlapping but…

In this article, the authors examine evaluation process use in a large multilevel, multisite core evaluation. This case highlights the nature of the evaluation processes of the Collaboratives for Excellence in Teacher Preparation (CETP) core evaluation in terms of four categories: (1) social processing; (2) engagement; (3) involvement; and (4)…