The College of St. Catherine's Weekend College program offers students the opportunity to earn a college degree by attending classes every other weekend from early September through June. Weekend College is designed for women of all ages and backgrounds. The interactional advising and peer mentor programs are described. (MLW)

This research explores the schooling effects of discontinuities in the rules of interaction the child experiences in family and classroom. Two forms of interaction rules are identified: (1) exchange rules, and (2) communal rules. It concludes that the articulation of interaction rules between family and classroom influences the students' academic…

Using a time-sampling observation method, three experimental fifth- and sixth-grade classrooms were observed during discussion sessions with three desk arrangements: rows, clusters, and circles. Results indicated students seated in circles engage in significantly more on-task behavior. As expected, observed pupil behavior varied significantly…

Describes a study conducted to determine the effects of task type and participation pattern on language classroom interaction. Evidence suggests that tasks which require information exchange are crucial to conversational modification of classroom interaction and that group and dyad interaction patterns produce more modification than…

Discusses second language acquisition, the importance of comprehensible input to this acquisition, and the inadequacy of the theory of language interference as an explanation for errors in second language speech. The role of the teacher in the language classroom and the "procedural syllabus" are described. (SED)

Suggests that an analysis of spontaneous speech collected in a simulation can provide insight into the way messages are produced and understood. Describes an experiment which used this technique to study the linguistic performance and communication strategies in anglophone children learning French. (SED)

College students with varying degrees of prior conceptual understanding of a scientific topic were randomly assigned to a program-controlled or a learner-controlled treatment in a sequence of computer-assisted video learning. (Author/LMO)

Describes a study of the role of face-to-face teaching and learning in two distance education courses at Athabasca University. Concerned with effects of a seminar on adult learner success, the study addressed the questions of whether students will attend optional seminars, how distance learners perceive seminars, whether attendees perform better,…

Using 146 high school students, this research assessed the effects of aptitude, strategy training, and item characteristics on the strategic processes employed in the performance of spatial visualization tasks. Treatment effects were shown to depend on the subject's aptitude profile and on the characteristics of items. (BS)

Reading achievement test performance of high and low ability sixth-graders in contrasting reading programs was examined. Lower academic ability pupils benefitted from the explicitly sequenced, behaviorally oriented Matteson program, while higher academic ability students benefitted from the Scott Foresman program, which emphasizes rich language…

The effects of formal and informal instructional processes upon adult college students' cognitive and affective states, as well as their classroom behaviors, were studied. Findings reaffirmed the previously reported significance of instructor role, classroom interaction, and course structure. (Author/GDC)

Implications of using pupil-to-pupil discussion with mathematics classrooms are discussed, with different ways in which such discussion might promote mathematical understanding. A framework for instruction includes the learning of the computer language Logo. (MNS)

Pennsylvania's mathematical modeling technique to evaluate tax reform proposals requires the following data: personal income at the local level and measures of the breakdown of property tax payment by land use classification. The simulation technique could be readily adapted in reorganizing educational finance systems. (MLF)

Data from two studies suggest that (1) people who make friends in their home culture also tend to make friends while in another culture and (2) close intracultural and intercultural relationships have analogous patterns. (PD)

Discusses recent research in reading comprehension, discourse analysis, and literary theory as it bears on the way in which the teaching of literary texts can be integrated into a general approach to the teaching of language as social discourse. Suggests a new approach to integrating language and literature in foreign language teaching. (SED)