The purpose of this study was to identify the factors which help successful equity initiatives that had been seeded in technical and further education (TAFE) institutes through short-term funding to take root and spread. The report concludes that many equity programs remain stuck in the seeding stage and fail to thrive and grow. It suggests that…

The National FFA Organization's Partners in Active Learning Support (PALS) is a program that utilizes high school members from FFA chapters as peer mentors. The purpose of this study was to examine needs of a sample of PALS advisors and mentors. An on-site pilot study was initially conducted, which included 3 individual interviews with program…

Grassroot Soccer (GRS), a U.S.-based nonprofit organization, designed a curriculum and sport-based teaching model to build resiliency, targeting boys and girls in Lusaka, Zambia, and Johannesburg, South Africa, where most children are reminded daily of the devastation caused by AIDS and where many face chronic and acute hardship. Collaborating…

This study examines the characteristics of Texas youth designated as "most difficult to place" recipients of service under the "Exceptional Care Pilot Project" (N = 46). Findings include, among others, high levels of comorbid psychiatric disturbance (greater than 3 diagnostic groupings), physical (78.3%) and sexual (88%)…

Training health professionals within university environments has traditionally focused on face-to-face methods. Practitioners working within the UK National Health Service (NHS) have found it difficult to gain leave from work to attend for study due to the demands of the NHS and staff shortages. In response, the authors developed a distance…

This article focuses upon the use of the portfolio as a tool to assess professional performance in beginning classroom teachers and in special education applications. An Oregon pilot study, the Beginning Teacher Assessment Model (BTAM) for elementary teachers in their second or third year in the classroom, is described. The BTAM relies extensively…

Two pilot studies of a new science program called WEE Science were conducted in fifth-grade classrooms. The pilots lasted for 7 days in one of the classrooms and 9 days in the other. At the beginning of the program the students chose a science tradebook from among the many that the researchers, teachers, and librarians had selected and brought to…

This paper discusses a formative evaluation method by which to assess World-Wide-Web (WWW) documents. Also presented are the results from a pilot evaluation which examined users' interactions with Web documents and the effects of providing "document maps" to guide users to specific information. A video-split screen technique was used to…

A project in collaborative teacher-based research was undertaken at Madison Area Technical College in Wisconsin as a background study for eventual implementation of teacher research in the Adult Basic Education (ABE) classroom. Personnel involved included an individual who served as both a director and consultant and five part-time teachers. The…

A study analyzed postings over a week-long period to two electronic discussion lists to position them as communication forms and to assess their potential value to journalism educators, students and researchers. The lists--"Journet" and "Stumedia"-- were examined using both quantitative and qualitative techniques. Results indicated that the…

This paper presents the results of a pilot study of African American public administrators' attitudes toward cultural diversity management in the Fall of 1995. It is based on an open-ended national survey that was mailed to 394 federal, state, and local African American public administrators. The study asked respondents about the special knowledge…

The use of online interviews as reflective dialogue for professional growth and development was studied. Doctoral research conducted using electronic mail messaging as a series of online interviews evolved into reflective dialogues between the researcher and subjects. Five users of an online discussion group on teaching participated in a pilot…

This study investigated the possibility of creating a computer-assisted remediation program to assist students having difficulties in basic college research and statistics courses. A team approach involving instructors and students drove the research into and creation of the computer program. The effect of student use was reviewed by looking at…

The usefulness of the Cognitive Engagement in Cooperative Learning (CECL) model for evaluating the learning outcomes associated with various cooperative learning activities is explored. The instructions that a set of learners is given, however broad or specific, is called a script. These scripts are associated with different learning outcomes…

A qualitative pilot study investigated the influence of nonfiction learning activities upon the level of student engagement, writing growth, and the quantity of students' nonfiction compositions. The participants were 19 third-grade students and 19 fourth-grade students, plus the 2 teachers of the respective classes. Nonfiction writing instruction…