Perceptions of student/professor competence and the reasons for a "chilly" classroom were investigated through a survey of 2,042 students from seventy-seven liberal arts colleges. Chi-square and Mann-Whitney tests showed statistically significant different responses by gender for all the questions. The perceptions of competence survey showed mixed…

This article presents a model of formative task-based language assessment implemented in the Chinese language program at the University of Iowa. The model was conceptualized from both empirical evidence, namely previous research done by other team members and me, and assessment theory, namely task-based learning and testing. Our formative…

The author contends that any type of indoctrination in the classroom, be it political, moral, or religious in nature, is inappropriate because it flies in the face of students' academic freedom, which should be carefully nurtured and rigorously defended. However, as he has continued ruminating about these matters, it has occurred to him that…

"How can this Abstract Algebra course help me to teach Algebra in high school?" To professors of prospective mathematics teachers, this type of question has a resounding familiarity. Because students are unclear as to the relationship between upper division mathematics courses and the high school curriculum, answering the opening question to the…

The purpose of this article is to highlight ways in which middle school content area teachers can more effectively assess English Language Learners (ELLs) in their classrooms. This article poses five questions to guide middle school content teachers in making adaptations and accommodations when using traditional classroom tests. The objective of…

The early computer-assisted-language-learning (CALL) programs were silent and mostly limited to screen or printer supported written text as the prevailing communication resource. The advent of powerful graphics, sound and video combined with AI-based parsers and sound recognition devices gradually turned the computer into a rather anthropomorphic…

The rapid growth of science and technology has a tremendous impact upon how an individual functions in today's society. This experiment-oriented course encourages the student to investigate home economics subject matter from a scientific viewpoint. Using the scientific method to solve problems and make decisions, the student conducts laboratory…

This publication contains materials for four courses in Applied Humanities in the Applied Academics program at South Seattle Community College. It begins with the article, "Community College Applied Academics: The State of the Art?" (George B. Neff), which describes the characteristics, model, courses, and coordination activity that make…

This paper describes a self-study by doctoral students serving as university mentors, supervisors, and researchers in a preservice teacher education program; and presents a second-order action analysis of this first-order action research. The action research reported focused on the teaching of action research, teacher education practices, and a…

There is a large body of well-conducted research that supports the value of freshmen orientation seminars in promoting the success of first-year students at community colleges. Orientation programs have been shown to improve retention, program completion, and the level of academic performance of these students. In addition to improving student…

The Guam State Plan for Adult Education, as implemented by Guam Community College, had five goals: provide a comprehensive adult education instructional program that is flexible and responsive to employment needs; increase enrollment and expand services for special groups; establish continuous needs assessment of targeted educationally…

As part of a federal grant to develop an across-the-curriculum ethics program, ethics instruction was integrated into English classes at Colorado's Community College of Aurora (CCA). In the English classes, students were first asked to read case studies from CCA's ethics handbook detailing specific ethical problems. In subsequent classes, students…

Issues in the design of research to describe educational practice are examined, and arguments for and against particular methodologies are summarized. A single study is used for illustrative purposes; it explores the relationship between English taught as a second language in school and English language needs in the workplace. The study uses both…

This document describes a project conducted to develop and use a curriculum of basic skills as applied to life coping areas. The target group were students of adult basic education (ABE) who lacked basic survival skills. Within the project year, 27 students participated in the program with the curriculum that was created. The document consists of…

This document presents the course content for a workshop that integrates the use of the computer algebra system Derive with topics in matrix and linear algebra. The first section is a guide to using Derive that provides information on how to write algebraic expressions, make graphs, save files, edit, define functions, differentiate expressions,…