Beginning with a brief history of homeschooling in America, this paper discusses literature describing today's population of homeschoolers. Although older, the binary typology offered by Van Galen (1987, 1991) to categorize the motivations of homeschoolers is still utilized in much of the homeschooling literature. Van Galen breaks homeschoolers…

This 17th annual report presents information on current trends and issues informally discussed by the directors of six National Council of Teachers of English commissions. Commission on Composition (Richard Gebhardt, director) discussed the role of writing in literacy; interactions of race, class, language, and learning; teaching grammar;…

This article describes a collaborative project between an English language class in Japan and one in the United States. The institutions involved were Tokyo International University (TIU), located in Kawagoe, Saitama, Japan, and its branch campus, Tokyo International University of America (TIUA) in Salem, Oregon. This project created an…

The Urban Systemic Initiatives (USI) program is an effort sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) that targets large urban school systems with the goal of sustainable implementation of high-quality, standards-based teaching for the purpose of attaining system-wide increases in students' learning of challenging mathematics and science.…

This study measured and compared the pre- and post-course differences in college students' attitudes toward and achievement in an asynchronous, Web-based, health profession course. The distance course included 14 Web-based learning modules that students could complete at their own pace prior to finishing the end of the term. The course also…

This paper describes how multiple sources of information were used by two educators to develop new understandings about their roles as teachers of information technology research to a multinational class. The information was gathered from students who provided feedback via an asynchronous Web-based chat space, e-mail, written assignments, and…

A new conceptual framework for comparative analysis of distance higher education systems, called the Systems Analysis, Typology and Shaping Mechanism (SATS), was used to compare the structures and functions of the DE systems of Australia (which includes external studies and open learning components) and China (which includes correspondence…

The first of the four papers in this symposium, "The History of Human Resource Development in Taiwan from 1949 to 1999" (Christine M. Kuo, Gary N. McLean) finds that, contrary to the belief of most Taiwanese scholars that HRD (human resource development) in Taiwan is a new field, the roots of HRD in that country originated in the 1950s.…

This workbook, one of six professional development manuals prepared by experienced Adult High School (AHS) instructors, is designed to assist the instructor setting up and operating a General Education Development (GED) classroom. A pretest and posttest appear first. Each of the seven units begins with a list of objectives and then provides…

This digest describes ways in which professionals who work with students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds can create an educational climate that accepts and respects the language and culture of its students and empowers them to feel confident enough to risk getting involved in the learning process. Methods of creating such an…

This paper presents information for educators on delivering an Internet-based course. The paper is divided into three parts. Part 1, "Teaching on the Web, What Is It?," lists advantages and disadvantages of face-to-face classroom instruction, traditional distance education, and Internet-based education which combines features from both…

This paper argues for peer evaluation of writing, in addition to peer editing, for a complete student-centered learning experience. The proposed peer evaluation model addresses three shortcomings of the current writing class model: (1) instructor workload; (2) the problem of students' writing for an audience of one; and (3) the problem of…

This book presents ideas for beginning secondary teachers who want to excel during their first year of teaching. The eight chapters focus on: (1) "Before the First Days of School" (e.g., classroom design, school policies, important people to know, dressing for success, special education students, school records, and emergency procedures); (2) "The…

This document contains 34 lesson or project plans written at inservice workshops focusing on integrating workplace skills (i.e. SCANS [Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills] and career awareness into the K-12 curriculum in Columbus (Ohio) Public Schools. The lesson and project plans are loosely organized by grade level. Each lesson…

For many adults, geometry is a mathematics topic that immediately makes sense to them and gives them confidence in their ability to learn, while other adult learners identify geometry with failure. Most adults, however, do recognize the need for measurement, and many have a basic understanding of measurement concepts, although they may need to…