A study explored student teachers' adherence, rejection, or modification of their course work-generated (but untested or "idealized") model of reading when faced with the demands of the classroom. Fifty senior education majors enrolled in an integrated elementary and special education program at an urban university wrote reflective essays,…

This study evaluated the generally recommended concrete-to-abstract hierarchy for presenting a new skill, with three students with learning disabilities in grades 1, 2, and 4. The three subjects enrolled in the Multidisciplinary Diagnostic and Training Program's classroom housed on the University of Florida campus in Gainesville. Following…

The literacy club described is a model cross-aged, paired reading program that is being successfully used in an elementary school in Redwood City, California to teach literacy skills to non-native speakers of English. The literacy club pairs older students--"rapid readers"--with younger students--"little readers"--in a yearlong reading experience…

This collection of papers focuses on guided practice as a face-to-face professional activity directed toward helping teachers learn to teach and learn from teaching. The first paper, "Guided Learning from Teaching: A Fresh Look at a Familiar Practice" by Sharon Feiman-Nemser and Cheryl Rosaen, provides a conceptual framework of guided…

The Reggio Emilia preschools in Italy have much to offer U.S. early education practitioners. If adapted, based on an understanding of American culture and of how American children learn, four components of the Reggio Emilia model can be useful in American early childhood settings. First, projects based on the interests of children can be used to…

This project examines the development of programs and strategies to help teachers include a variety of instructional behaviors that will, in turn, stimulate many kinds of student thinking. A voluntary group of teachers formed study teams to learn the Dimensions of Learning Model and implement strategies from the model in their classrooms. The…

Project ALERT (Adult Literacy Enhanced & Redefined through Training) was a 3-year effort to develop and deploy a number of innovative approaches to delivering workplace literacy programs to business partners, including manufacturers and unions. The project designed, developed, and implemented workplace literacy programs tailored to the…

Analysis of the Project ALERT (Adult Literacy Enhanced & Redefined through Training) Workplace Literacy Project produced a description of the needs assessment process, steps, and instruments that can be used for needs assessment in other workplace education projects. The data for the needs assessment were collected through the following methods: a…

The teacher's role and his or her understanding of it in the learning situation is one variable that needs to be included in any discussion of educational intervention. Bereiter and Scardamalia's (1991) teaching models provide a matrix for organizing teachers' classroom practice. Briefly, each model can be understood as a different view on the…

This practicum was designed to develop a national teacher training model giving special education professionals at eight sites the background, understanding, materials, and support necessary to teach secondary students with disabilities about their rights, responsibilities, and opportunities under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).…

A project was conducted to provide staff development opportunities to adult education instructors so they could use the Adult Informal Measures developed at the University of Pittsburgh, with a long-range goal of creating a staff development model for the use of informal assessment in adult education programs by instructors with varying expertise…

This paper discusses the founding of the Reggio Emilia preschool system in Reggio, Italy, in 1945 and its development through the 1950s to the present. Since the schools themselves were actually founded and constructed by parents in the aftermath of World War II, the Reggio Emilia approach has always emphasized parent involvement in every facet of…

This booklet outlines the California state guidelines for writing which assert that students should be carefully taught to read and compose many types of discourse to prepare them for higher education, the job market, and citizenship in democracy. The booklet summarizes the purposes for which the California Assessment Program (CAP) was developed,…

Out of the school reform movement of the eighties have come recommendations for professional development schools, site-based management, and teacher empowerment. Such initiatives can be implemented only in environments where continuing pursuit of new knowledge exists at every level. There is a pressing need for educational models that strive to…

Designed to provide community college instructors with an understanding of how to improve the motivational level of their students, this four-part guidebook reviews theoretical concepts and offers practical advice concerning student motivation and frustration. Section I provides an overview of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and of…