An electronic survey of a listserv discussion group, the Interdisciplinary Teamed Instruction (ITI) group, was conducted to learn more about the group and to explore surveying electronically. A 10-question survey was posted electronically, as were respondents' replies. Three reminders were posted over the 3-week reply period. The number of…

Statistics indicate that the Canadian divorce rate has stabilized, at least for now. To avoid complacency about the flat divorce rate, this issue of "Transition," in both English- and French-language versions, examines the facts in the context of their impact on families. Part 1, "As Long as We Both Shall Love," looks at the…

In previous research, children's empathy has been positively related to guilt and unrelated to shame. In the present study, it was predicted that guilt and empathy would have a curvilinear relationship, while shame and empathy were expected to be inversely related. Participating were 115 children: somewhat less than half were ages 8-9 years, while…

This study explores the relative merits of a potentially useful item response theory (IRT) linking design: using a single set of anchor items with fixed common item parameters (FCIP) during the calibration process. An empirical study was conducted to investigate the appropriateness of this linking design using 6 groups of students taking 6 forms…

The Safe Schools Coalition of Washington is a public-private partnership of 90 offices, agencies, and organizations, as well as many individuals. The Coalition's Anti-Violence Documentation Project is an ongoing statewide qualitative study examining the phenomenon of anti-gay sexual harassment and violence in kindergarten through grade 12. In the…

Many theories have been developed to try to explain humor, among them, the social theory; psychoanalytic theories based on Freud; cognitive theories which identify stages corresponding to those of Piaget; and eclectic theories which combine elements of all the theories. The developmental stages of humor parallel the intellectual and emotional…

In three lectures, Benjamin D. Wright of the University of Chicago introduces the Rasch model and its basic concepts. The first lecture, March 30, 1994 discusses the model created by Georg Rasch, a Danish mathematician, which Dr. Wright initially saw as merely a way to make raw scores into measures. Eventually, the model developed into a…

Writing instructors must first examine the ways in which they are currently making written comments to become more effective in fostering improved student writing. Three heuristic rubrics form the basis for a guided self-assessment rubric for writing instructors. The first rubric is based on the work of Elaine O. Lees (1979) and involves…

This paper examines some of the emotional issues that can interfere with teachers' professional skills and abilities to reflect on what they are doing in a non-emotional, non-judgmental way. For example, the recent move to include students with disabilities in mainstream classes has placed stress on many teachers, making them feel overwhelmed,…

Telling stories from secondary and college English classrooms, this book explores the new possibilities for teaching and learning generated by bringing together reader-response and cultural-studies approaches. The book connects William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, and other canonical figures to multicultural writers, popular culture,…

This paper describes attempts to implement an emergent literacy intervention in a child-care setting in a high-poverty, Spanish bilingual setting in downtown Los Angeles. Specifically, it discusses the authors' work with a particular preschool teacher, explaining how the research team and the teacher were able to overcome their original biases and…

This study examined factors related to survey response rate, particularly for teachers who participated in a nationwide survey. Using a newly developed statistical technique, the classification tree algorithm (CART), this study classified the lowest response rate and highest response rate groups based on their school demographic characteristics.…

The middle school reading/literature instructor needs to determine where each student is in reading achievement and then assist each to achieve as optimally as possible. What might the teacher do to assist students to become good middle school readers? A major problem of middle schoolers is to be able to recognize a certain percent of words…

One of the primary principles of Readers Theater is to "dramatize" literature in classroom performance and to provide a visual and oral stimulus to students who are unaccustomed to using imagination to appreciate literary texts. Readers Theater may be used to enhance the critical study of language; to explore author meaning or point of view; to…

Self-regulation of behavior generally refers to controlled, cognitive monitoring of the actions and steps required to obtain a goal, or to bring about a desired response from the environment. Age-related changes in self-regulation as well as individual differences at a given age or developmental stage play fundamental roles in shaping children's…