The purpose of "Teach for America," a program modeled after the Peace Corps, was to recruit a cadre of bright college graduates to become uncertified teachers for two years in some of America's toughest schools. This book tracks the successes and failures of the program in its first year and presents the stories of seven idealistic corps…

In most elementary schools in the United States, students get their first systematic introduction to history as a discipline and to chronological treatment of U.S. history as subject matter in fifth-grade U.S. history courses. To develop information about the knowledge and misconceptions concerning U.S. history that fifth-grade teachers can expect…

This book explores how learning is the lifetime quest to understand personal identity, purpose, and meaning while conforming and adapting to the perceived and real confines of a paradoxical society. It examines the complex social experience of learning, revealing how culture, gender, race, and other societal factors shape and mold an individual's…

This study looks at the higher education learning needs of population subgroups by reviewing research concerning the classroom experiences of minority group students and women. The importance of addressing these questions is raised by the current and expected growth in ethnic minorities in the United States. Findings indicate that Black students…

This study compared students' learning experiences in a set of courses in British literature and a set of courses in marketing, in which each set included a course taught in an intensive format and a semester-long format with the same instructor and content. Data collection included participant observation, videotaped class sessions,…

This study was conducted to examine the influences of prior school experience on student teachers' thinking. It includes descriptions of students' prior school experiences and an intervention in which students were asked to reflect on and re-evaluate those experiences. Beliefs about education, learning, self worth, abilities, and the development…

Designed for media specialists and educators, the four articles in this issue focus on television's effects on children. Following a brief editorial reviewing current directions of research in this area, the first article compares the American pre-school educational television program "Sesame Street" with its Australian counterpart.…

Three articles offer parents suggestions on how to make television a positive experience for their children. An editorial introduces the following themes basic to all the articles: type and amount of television viewing should be regulated by parents, parents should discuss television with their children, and parents must become aware of the…

The complex problems affecting the transition from secondary to postsecondary education are reviewed by an educator who works with black students from a small, Catholic high school. The following adjustments that students face in college are discussed: a change in the way a student is taught and learns, new levels of responsibility and…

Using recent research on the causes of educational disadvantage in order to arrive at a working definition of educationally disadvantaged children, this paper considers the educational experiences of children at home, in the community, and at school. Thus, families and communities may be viewed as educationally deficient without necessarily being…

The third in a series of volumes of curriculum essays on the concepts, issues, and strategies of community development education and training is presented. Five sections with 20 papers are as follows: (1) introduction: theories, definitions, and origins of experiential education--"Experiential Education for Community Development" (I. Harris, P.…

Workshop and seminar summaries and abstracts of papers from the tenth international conference on improving university teaching are presented. Topics addressed by theme and seminar presentations are as follows: the professor of the future; adapting postsecondary education to changes in demography, social expectations, and resources; partnerships…

A model on learning that occurs in the workplace is discussed. Two theoretical frameworks are explored: multiple learning domains and action science. Four examples that reflect some of the characteristics of the new paradigm for learning in the workplace are included. The examples concern management development in a large business, a staff…

Does homework increase academic achievement? The best answer, in 1986, is that large-scale correlational studies at the secondary level suggest a strong, positive relationship between amount of homework and academic achievement. Results are less clear at the elementary level, but the weight of evidence is positive. At both elementary and secondary…

With more than 14 years of preparation, the author thought he knew how to write a syllabus--until he moved to Missouri. Having spent the previous nine years next door in Illinois, first as a graduate student and then as an adjunct (both at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), the author never noticed that his neighbors in the Show Me…