This practicum was designed to enhance the school and home learning environments of 20 neurologically and perceptually impaired students in kindergarten through sixth grade. Participating students received daily regular class and resource room instruction. Needs assessment measures revealed that little learning characteristic data were available…

To investigate the current status of group time in early childhood centers, a small-scale exploratory study was designed and executed. Results of interviews with 35 teachers and observations in five classrooms serving children ages 2 1/2 through kindergarten revealed that all classrooms had at least one group time or circle time, usually in the…

A 20-item questionnaire determined and compared attitudes of 996 public school teachers and administrators in 83 rural Tennessee counties concerning curriculum development, course content, school environment, individualized instruction, philosophical parameters, student evaluation, and extracurricular activities. Both teachers and administrators…

Theoretical traditions concerning school environments and student achievement are described, and their insights are linked with analyses of school and classroom interactions to develop a simple conceptual model of environmental influences on student achievement. The literature regarding environmental influences is then reviewed, and the last…

The goal of education in general and of reading instruction in particular is to prepare students for the future. The psychological, social, and economic changes brought about by technological advancements require reading teachers to make a number of changes and adjustments in their classrooms. To prepare students for a world shaped by technology,…

The textbook tapescripts for a course in basic Pashto are transcriptions of tapes that accompany the basic text. The tapescript for each of the course's 35 lessons includes listening and speaking exercises on material in the parallel textbook lesson. Lesson topics include information on the Pashtuns, classroom communication and behavior,…

The workbook for a course in basic Pashto, designed to accompany a textbook and other materials, contains notes and exercises for students to use after class sessions. It provides background information, study hints, and activities for reviewing new and previously learned information. The course consists of seven units, each containing five…

This paper provides a focus on the successful and positive facets of schooling from a series of case studies. The study involved 13 researchers in over 500 hours of intensive classroom observation of 20 exemplary teachers and a comparison group of non-exemplary teachers. The qualitative information was complemented by quantitative information…

As a result of preliminary observations of word processing in elementary level language the seven case studies presented in this report reveal the effectiveness of current word processing (WP) activities within their respective instructional contexts. Each study is presented separately, detailing the classroom context, tasks and outcomes, program…

This paper identifies five indicators of exemplary efforts and programs that characterize an emerging model for science teacher education reform. These include: (1) defining basic science as content preparation; (2) assessing students beyond content mastery; (3) providing multiple school experiences; (4) working in a semester-long teacher center;…

This paper discusses five specific features of an emerging teacher education model. They include: (1) developing a rationale for teaching science; (2) providing sufficient time for personal change; (3) developing self-analysis skills concerning teaching and learning behaviors; (4) analyzing classroom climate; and (5) modeling teaching behaviors…

A select portion of the educational management literature is reviewed in the three sections of this paper. The first section discusses literature concerning the amount of time students spend in school. Specific attention is given to the quantity of schooling, the allocation of school time, student engagement in academic tasks, and the relationship…

During the first phase of a three-phase study of teaching basic reading skills in the secondary schools, 43 secondary-school reading classrooms were observed for three days, and the relationships between teaching processes and students' gains in reading were examined. Data were recorded with the Secondary Observation Instrument, and the Classroom…

Research extending back into the 1890's reveals that the quality of classroom instruction depends not upon differing curricula, for example, but rather upon the attitudes and actions of teachers. Instructional effectiveness is especially important for independent schools, yet availability as well as quality of candidates has dropped markedly.…

This study was conducted to determine whether changes from traditional organizational patterns in elementary schools make a difference in reading achievement. The study was conducted through comparisons of student populations in three suburban schools. Two schools were experimental (one nongraded, one open space), and the third was a traditional…