Lifelike, interactive digital characters, serving as mentors and role-playing actors, have been shown to significantly improve learner motivation and retention. However, the cost of modeling such characters, authoring and editing their interactions, and delivering them over limited-bandwidth connections can be prohibitive. This paper describes a…

As a part of the teacher licensure program at the graduate level at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC), the M.Ed. Licensure candidate is required to complete an action research project during a 3-semester-hour course that coincides with the 9-semester-hour student teaching experience. This course, Education 590 Culminating…

North Carolina first established a Standard Course of Study in 1898. The "North Carolina Standard Course of Study" provides every content area a set of competencies for each grade and high school course. Its intent is to ensure rigorous student academic performance standards that are uniform across the state. It includes the subject or…

These papers address three issues of concern to educators of language minority students: preparation of quality teachers, the effects of standardized and high-stakes testing on language learners, and specific teaching strategies that view language minority students as capable and deserving of first-class educational opportunities. After an…

In this bulletin, the author describes the various efforts, conditions, and tasks of kindergarten educators during wartime. The document makes particular note of the International Kindergarten Union's work with the American Red Cross in providing service to the children of France who have been severely affected by the war. Further, the author…

"Higher Education Exchange" publishes case studies, analyses, news, and ideas about efforts within higher education to develop more democratic societies. Contributors to this issue of the "Higher Education Exchange" examine whether institutions of higher learning are doing anything to increase the capacity of citizens to shape…

This report describes patterns of continuity and change among spring 2004 high school seniors from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002) first follow-up study, spring 1992 seniors from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) second follow-up study, spring 1980 seniors from the High School and Beyond (HS&B)…

The likelihood that students will make a successful transition to the college environment is often a function of their readiness--the degree to which previous educational and personal experiences have equipped them for the expectations and demands they will encounter in college. A key problem is that the current measures of college preparation are…

In 2004 the Arizona Education Policy Initiative (AEPI), a collaboration of Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University, and the University of Arizona, conducted its first-annual survey of parents in a systematic effort to capture parent opinion and establish a framework for tracking parent views over time. Assessing parent opinion is…

The Arizona Education Policy Initiative (AEPI), a collaboration of Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University, and the University of Arizona, conducted a statewide telephone survey to get parents' perspectives on the condition of education in the state. From March 17 to March 27, 2004, a statewide random sample of 400 Arizona parents…

This book is the story of four nonnative children's acculturation into an American elementary school, as seen by the author, the teachers, the parents, and the children themselves. The book states that some of the challenges stem from linguistic barriers, but that others are cultural issues so endemic that neither the teacher nor the student is…

A case study described the English literacy learning of two language minority students in a suburban kindergarten program in a predominantly white school district. Data collected throughout the school year indicated that weak home and school communication related to inaccurate interpretations of the children's literacy learning which led to…

The data in this report were obtained from the base-year and follow-up surveys of the National Education Longitudinal Study of the Eighth Grade Class of 1988 (NELS:88). NELS:88 began with a sample of 1,052 schools and 24,599 eighth graders. The results of this report apply to students who were eighth-graders in 1988 and graduated from high school…

A study focused on ways in which literature might be used to support the literacy learning of English language learners in classrooms of diversity where a number of cultures and mother tongues were represented. The framework guiding the study (as in earlier work) is based on a sociocognitive view on literacy where literacy learning is socially…

A study examined the efficacy of homework assignments on the learning and academic achievement of 13 high school students in a second-year German class. During the first and second quarters of the 1993-94 school year, each homework assignment was checked by the teacher and assigned a grade of two points if it was complete, one point if incomplete,…