This paper explores issues that designers of learning environments should consider, omitting issues about knowledge learned and the social settings in which learning occurs that are addressed elsewhere. The perspective taken on design is to think of each decision in terms of its costs and benefits, an approach that may allow designers to minimize…

This booklet introduces techniques and concepts that can be used for alternative styles of lesson delivery within the context of the autonomous learning approach and self-managing teams that are characteristic of resource-based learning. Much of the information is designed to help teachers enable learners to make good use of information resources.…

How distance education affects academic performance and student attitudes was studied for graduate students in an off-campus location taking a course required for their majors. The performance and attitudes of the distance (off-campus/remote) class of 16 students were compared with those of a control group of 12 students in a similar class and 25…

The utility of the proposed Program Evaluation Standards to educational practitioners, and the adequacy of some of the standards in addressing issues in evaluation in culturally and linguistically educational environments are discussed, drawing on the author's experience as Director of the Evaluation Assistance Center East in Arlington (Virginia).…

The Bibliographic Instruction Committee of the Wichita State (Kansas) University Libraries recommended changes to improve the current bibliographic instruction program for lower division undergraduates. The shortcomings of the current program, one class period in a required English course, were analyzed; and suggestions were made to improve the…

The object teaching revolution challenged the 19th century American education practices of learning by rote memorization and relying on the textbook and teacher for knowledge. The American version of object teaching evolved from Pestalozzi's educational philosophy of "Arschauung," which refers to learning from direct concrete…

The National Academy of Education (NAE) Panel has drawn two major conclusions in its evaluation of the National Assessment Governing Board's (NAGB) efforts to set achievement levels for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). They are that the Angoff procedure is fundamentally flawed for the setting of achievement levels, and that…

This curriculum guide was developed for teachers to use in planning and implementing a competency-based high school instructional program in foods and nutrition. It contains materials for a 2-semester course, based on the North Carolina Program of Studies (revised 1992), designed to help students learn about food customs and trends and interpret…

Building on an international survey including nearly 10,500 teachers and 200,000 students in 32 countries, this booklet presents empirical data relevant to the controversial issue of how children should be taught to read. The booklet examines a broad spectrum of teaching conditions, teacher characteristics, and instructional practices and relates…

This paper analyzes discrepant findings from research on science teacher knowledge and classroom discourse. In new science teachers' classrooms, discourse during laboratory activities differed in important ways from discourse during other types of instruction. Furthermore, teacher subject-matter knowledge had effects that were not predicted by the…

This document reports the proceedings of a national conference to chart the comprehensive changes needed to meet the challenges of undergraduate professional education in agriculture. Part I of the proceedings contains the following 14 conference papers: (1) "Rethinking Undergraduate Professional Education for the Twenty-First Century: The…

Industrial and organizational psychologists for the Department of Defense have been working for the past 10 years to develop high fidelity measures of job performance for use in validating job selection procedures and standards. Information on developing and scoring performance exercises in the Job Performance Measurement (JPM) Project is…

Compensatory education describes the special programs and services provided to students who are not succeeding in school and who do not qualify for special education. Educators define these students as "at risk"--at risk of school failure and a difficult transition to productive adult life. A recent study of compensatory education by the…

Despite complaints from undergraduate students concerning language and pedagogical skills of international teaching assistants (ITAs), institutions of higher education continue to appoint ITAs to teach. Legislative mandates have appeared to assess and improve language and pedagogical skills of ITAs, and the academies have likewise responded with…

This digest summarizes a longer document with the same title that discusses the problem of using, training, and assessing international teaching assistants (ITAs) in undergraduate education. Legislative mandates have appeared to assess and improve language and pedagogical skills of ITAs, and academies have likewise responded with workshops and…