The effectiveness of a commercial preparation class in New York City for the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) was studied. A group of the regular clientele of the school (55 eleventh graders) was compared with a group of low-income minority students given scholarships to the course (33 Black or Hispanic eleventh graders). The effects of the coaching…

This paper discusses the overall design of the PIXIE Intelligent Tutoring System, and more specifically a series of recent enhancements. The original system has been implemented to involve three separate phases: the offline, or model generation phase; the online, or tutoring, phase; and the analysis phase. The offline phase, which is completed…

A description is given of a program developed to offer first semester student teachers the opportunity to become intensely involved with adolescents through a tutorial program on a high school campus. The object was to enable student teachers to become familiar with adolescent social and learning problems, particularly those of students from lower…

Three major educational revolutions have been the advent of writing, the use of books as teaching tools, and the shift in educational responsibility from the home to the school. The fourth revolution, which is based on the use of electronic technology in teaching, began with programmed teaching machines, individualized instruction, and the…

This digest reviews the promise and drawbacks of computerized learning programs and telecommunication technologies for small rural schools. A critical feature of programmed learning packages can be their stand-alone feature. To the extent that such programs do not require the presence or involvement of a trained on-site teacher, they make it…

This report discusses the Student Academic Services (SAS) project at Eastern New Mexico University. It looks at how student development efforts have been augmented at the university. SAS is based on student development philosophy, fundamental to which is an understanding that the human individual functions as a unit, and his/her diverse features…

This document describes a mentoring network for mid-career teachers--a natural extension beyond the induction stage. The focus for this presentation is the anatomy of change through colleague-led staff development. The noteworthy elements of this approach are as follows: (1) the voluntary participation of effective elementary and secondary…

To determine the effects of peer tutoring on tutors and tutees in middle school English classes, a study was conducted using pretest and posttest data of 120 students in a Mississippi middle school gathered from the following: (1) the California Achievement Test, 1977 Edition, Forms C and D; (2) teacher-assigned grades in English classes; (3)…

The background concerning educational programs and practices designed to promote the development, retention, and grade point averages of black college students is traced. The literature reveals historical events and legislative statutes that brought a system of educational inequality to blacks in America. A dual educational system has meant that…

A study gauged the effects of peer tutoring on the reading skills of first graders. Subjects were 250 children divided into eight experimental and four control classrooms in a school district in Utah. Teachers were trained by researchers, bearing in mind five procedural principles: (1) appropriate modeling by the teacher, (2) extensive dialogue,…

A study investigated the effects of using the Personalized System of Instruction (PSI) model in distance education. The PSI version of the course (PSI-P) was compared to a version of the course that was found to be instructionally weak (C), a revised version of the course that had an improved instructional design (IB), and a version of the course…

This handbook presents the key components of an urban home-based tutoring program for adults. It updates information contained in the fiscal year 1983 handbook. Section 1 answers questions regarding what home-based tutoring is, the need, the population served, curriculum design, special clients (mentally retarded, General Educational Development…

An experiment was conducted to determine if a mathematics laboratory would reduce the withdraw/failure (W/F) rate in freshman mathematics courses. Fifty-six students in two course sections of analytic geometry were designated as comparative experimental groups T-1 and T-2, with 29 subjects in T-1 receiving only tutoring, and 27 in T-2 receiving…

In order to determine how to enable teachers to become more effective in individualizing reading instruction, 75 preservice teachers who were enrolled in a general education course were observed as they tutored second and third grade children in reading twice a week for one semester. A brief analysis of the literature on the behavior of teachers…

An evaluation of Los Angeles City College's Learning Skills Center (LSC) was conducted in order to ascertain the nature of the LSC's outcomes. The LSC offers students an opportunity to participate in diagnostic and prescriptive open-entry open-exit programs in an individualized setting. Types of programs available through the LSC include…