The article describes how an urban African-American teacher inquired into, reflected upon, and analyzed her beliefs and assumptions about her practice and reconciled the need for personal and professional truth. Because teacher inquiry shapes curriculum and attitudes, literacy teachers must examine the pretexts under which they make assumptions.…

The interactions of gender, culture, and attitudes about computers were studied for 266 male and 204 female Japanese and 159 male and 144 female Swedish ninth graders. Most differences are best explained by country and student gender variables. The overall country effects are influenced more by females than males. (SLD)

This article reviews six models of literacy strategy instruction in special and remedial education and reports on a study which manipulated teacher and student control of activity, as well as the instructional context, in examining the implementation and outcomes of three models: direct instruction; reciprocal teaching; and collaborative problem…

Indicates science background is essential to student preparation for the Environmental Health Profession and provides examples of problems that occur because of the lack of scientific understanding. Reviews reasons for the declining enrollment in college science programs and discusses the challenge of recruiting students with the skills necessary…

Examines studies relating to two aspects of children's use of electronic information media: (1) access to print information through online (or card) catalogs and databases; and (2) direct access to information in electronic format. Gender differences are discussed, and implications of the studies for software development and equality of computer…

Reports on a study of the writing skills of 51 Italian fourth graders who used word processors for several months. Concludes that word processing can help motivate children and teachers to do more writing and that further improvement in writing skills would occur if the children received writing instruction. (CFR)

This study compared the use of dialog and response journal formats in a graduate class for literacy educators. Data from student journals, interviews, and questionnaires indicated that students comparably completed each type of entry and believed the two formats served similar functions (promoting collegial consultation, improving task engagement,…

Examines nonverbal communication research, highlighting areas relevant to teacher education and classroom diversity and emphasizing research on cultures, races, genders, and personalities. The article discusses functions of nonverbal communication in the classroom, synthesizes functions into a nonverbal teaching framework, applies the framework to…

At-risk students present problems not addressed by methods and materials. Changes in teacher education to help poor readers are distracted by debates over methodologies. The article suggests socio-emotional problems of at-risk students underlie their academic failures. Teachers must focus on teacher/learner interactions to bring about personal…

Investigates characteristics of 10 African-American women persisting in literacy programs. Subjects, aged 21 to 70 years, had been in reading programs from 1 to 8 years. Women cite their own determination and attitudes of program staff as among the most important variables in fostering persistence. (SLD)

Six articles analyze 1989 data from the Computers in Education Study of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), a cross-national elementary and secondary education assessment. A seventh paper describes the rationale and procedures for construction of tests used in the study's second stage in 1992. (SLD)

Examines the influence of two factors of the process of graphing on rural students' (n=93) ability to comprehend kinematics graphs on constant velocity events. Students exhibited difficulty in constructing and comprehending graphs of derived variables and were unaware of their own graphing skills deficiencies. (34 references) (MDH)

Science teachers and teacher educators need to reexamine the geoscience content in their courses. Public ignorance about science, in general, and about key concepts of the geological sciences, in particular, inhibits effective action on problems relating to environmental change, land utilization, hazard mitigation, construction safety, cost…

Although the Chelsea project, in which Boston University has taken control of the Chelsea School System (Massachusetts), has been hampered by political and financial problems, the university is pressing ahead with educational experiments to improve teaching, expand educational opportunities, reduce dropout rates, and increase community…

Describes the use of mapping and portfolio assessment by school library media specialists to document changes in student reading, writing, and information use patterns. Topics discussed include new curriculum designs in language arts and social studies; information literacy; comparing earlier and later work; and student reflection. (Contains 37…