A teacher with 20 years' experience in teaching at-risk students relates encounters with individuals in New York City high schools and community colleges. He recommends a holistic approach in teaching, involving encouragement, collaboration, and orality, with a lesser emphasis on subject mastery. (DM)

Reviews the reaction to the movement within the developmental education and learning assistance profession to create a national certification program for individuals. Provides a brief history of standards and certification in this field, responses from interviews with Hunter Boylan and David Arendale regarding individual certification, and poses…

Shares the author's beliefs about the practice of teaching developmental writing in an attempt to get colleagues in other academic settings involved in a dialogue about the writing philosophies in their practices. Presents an interest in the beliefs and theories that form the foundation of what others do in their writing programs. (VWC)

States that learning assistance centers are often caught in the throws of controversy at institutions of higher education. Examines some of the causal contributors to this controversy in an attempt to help learning assistance professionals identify the strategies necessary to preserve their centers' integrity in good and difficult financial times.…

Reports on the efforts of one developmental education program to seek faculty input regarding the provision of services. Provides a look at faculty questionnaire results, and presents recommendations for expanding the use of the program, including publicity, courses and adjunct seminars, workshops, and classroom presentations, group and individual…

This digest discusses some of the ways basic skills instructors can help students become real learners. The digest argues that the "learning specialist" (a term preferable to "remedial/developmental" reading specialist) should operate from a philosophical perspective stressing strategic approaches to reading-to-learn as driven…

Drawing upon selected findings from student and faculty surveys, this report describes the remedial mathematics component of the University of Georgia's Special Studies Program. After examining the need for basic skills programs in an era of declining test scores and open admissions policies, the report describes the Special Studies Program's…

Attributes the high rate of academic success of freshmen at Vincennes University to its developmental program. Aspects of the program include: mandatory enrollment for those with inadequate Scholastic Achievement Test scores, mathematics and reading laboratories, modularized classes, and support services. Assesses evidence of program success. (AYC)

Discusses Arthur Chickering's Seven Vectors of College Student Development in relation to the author's own growth as a freshman college student and to that of the first-year students she worked with as a developmental educator. Explains that Chickering's theory encompasses the intellectual, physical, and social growth of the student. (Contains 40…

This paper examines remediation as the product of perceptions and beliefs about literacy and learning. It illustrates some ways teachers inadvertently participate in constructing inaccurate and limiting notions of learners as being cognitively defective and in need of "remedy," and thus limit classroom learning. It combines an empirical,…

Presents an action plan for the many developmental educators who have been enraged by the entry of private companies into the developmental education field. Asserts that developmental educators should combine the best that learning assistance has to offer with the best that the private companies have to offer, within a framework and language that…

This report presents the findings of a Fast Response Survey System (FRSS) survey of 2,874 colleges on remedial/developmental programs offered during fall 1989. The survey provides national estimates on the following factors: institutions that offered remedial courses; reading, writing, and mathematics remedial courses offered; students enrolled in…

Describes Wilson's experience in Ithaca College's Teaching Apprenticeship in Writing, a program that introduces teaching apprentices to the instructional process and pairs them with professor mentors. (VWC)

Designed for developmental educators involved in a Telementoring Project, this instructional unit identifies common causes of poor academic performance by students enrolled in developmental programs. The sections of the unit address: (1) students' lack of personal and/or academic autonomy in terms of expected success, locus of control, and…

Presents the "Teaching Journal" as a component of the Teaching Apprenticeship in Expository Writing course offered by Ithaca College. The professor mentor and the teaching apprentice write independently about their weekly classroom observations, opinions, questions, and concerns. This process offers apprentices teaching experience and…