Speech teachers in small colleges often feel frustrated because of their course load and other heavy demands made on their time. Because their departments are small, they have few colleagues in their discipline to work with, and this--plus time constraints--makes it difficult for them to remain professionally active. One way they can extricate…

A study using microcomputers for instruction in sentence-building skills with two groups of American Indians in bilingual education programs found computer-assisted instruction to be effective in developing differential skills in the different age groups. The method used small group activity at the computer, emphasizing the cooperative learning…

Children's literature, when used appropriately in conjunction with textbooks, can become a powerful teaching tool that builds relevant prior knowledge, capitalizes on the student's skill in reading narrative, engenders interest and motivation, and consequently promotes a deeper understanding and appreciation of the content in both trade books and…

This manual covers study behavior and attitudes and specific study techniques for health profession students, including scheduling, comprehension, memory, and test-taking techniques. Much of the approach emphasizes self-discipline and honesty. Focus is on how students in a health professions program can make their study time more productive and…

In many classrooms, there are a few students who become bored and indulge in reverie. They tend to be apathetic or indifferent to course activities, and attempts to get them interested via invitational approaches are often not successful. Some of these students are not aware of how their instructors view them or that there is a problem, and the…

Major technical issues concerning the assessment of student learning in higher education are presented in light of the authors' own knowledge of principles and methods of testing and measurement. This information is intended to help academic administrators and faculty draft a charge to a committee for the design and implementation of an assessment…

Two reports of student nonpersistence at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP), are provided, taken from the Maryland Longitudinal Study. The first study, which examined four questions regarding students who become nonpersisters, found the following: nonpersisters had poor high school and first-semester study habits, were apt to have…

The verbal interaction between a laboratory school class of sixth/seventh grade students and their teacher during 18 social studies discussions was analyzed in order to identify teacher techniques relevant to student discourse and student passivity. Classroom discussions were taped, transcribed, and analyzed according to an adaptation of the…

Most school writing required of students is done in artificial situations that have little resemblance to the writing demands people actually face. For this reason, students often fail to see the value of writing and thus produce writing that does not reflect their true ability to communicate. In a bilingual Los Angeles school serving students…

This dissertation examines various characteristics of 79 Iowa public high schools reporting success or failure in the use of flexible modular scheduling (FMS), based on questionnaire responses. FMS schools were defined as having a daily schedule of more than 14 modules and using either variable class times, large group, small group, or independent…

Attributions for school success and failure were examined among 112 Native American and 99 Anglo students at a large, urban multi-campus community college system in the Southwest, by using the Multidimensional-Multiattributional Causality Scale. All subjects were in remedial reading classes; 48% were male and 52% were female. Mean age was 24.1,…

The purpose of this study was to find out why a significant percentage of students drop out of the Nigerian school system every year. While statistics for dropouts in developed countries are based on those who fail to continue with their secondary education, dropouts in developing nations like Nigeria are counted as the number that dropped out of…

This study was conducted to explore the economic and programmatic implications of school-year program attrition in secondary vocational programs in New Hampshire. The study included students who switched to other vocational programs as well as those who switched to a general academic or a college preparatory curriculum. Interviews were conducted,…

Recognizing that students spend more time before the television set than in school, this monograph evaluates television as a potential resource in the teaching of English. The nine articles in the collection (1) discuss the effect of massive television viewing on children in and out of the classroom; (2) examine the students' need to apply…

Based on a synthesis of research and on telephone interviews with representatives of 22 school districts, this study analyzes the effectiveness and problems of two types of motivational plans for teachers: merit pay plans in which at least part of a teacher's pay is linked to performance, and nonmonetary performance-by-objectives plans in which…