It is not unusual to hear students at the Cesar Chavez Learning Center say that if they were not able to go to this kind of school, they would have given up on formal education a long time ago. Housed in a strip mall a mile and a half from the U.S.-Mexican border, the Chavez center allows students to attend school for a half day--morning or…

A review of selected literature suggests that integrating multimedia computer supports with activity schedules can be an effective way to teach students to manage their work, play, and skill-building activities independently. Activity schedules originally were a means of promoting independent execution of previously learned responses by using…

People's welfare is a function of both time and money. People can--and, it is said, increasingly do--suffer time-poverty as well as money-poverty. It is undeniably true that people feel increasingly time pressured, particularly in dual-earner households. But much of the time devoted to paid and unpaid tasks is over and above that which is strictly…

This study grew out of a need to assess reference desk data and determine two items: the number of questions handled for the last three years and the times when the desk should be double staffed. Analysis of the data by chi-square standardized residuals identified the days of the week, and the times during the day of heavy and light use. Data sort…

Arkansas Northeastern College, formerly Mississippi County Community College, has been in the business of providing training in the Northeast Arkansas region for over 15 years. Prior to 1996, adjunct trainers or faculty provided the training. In 1996, Mississippi County Community College's (MCCC) training director, Robin Myers (now president of…

Teaching with activity schedules may yield functional skills that are not readily achieved by traditional discrete-trial teaching or by naturalistic intervention strategies. Activity schedules are unique because the procedures focus on teaching a learner to do and say things in the presence of instructional cues accessed independently rather than…

A request for increasing instructional time on subjects that have a mandated passing-score requirement and decreasing instructional time on subjects like social studies that are either not tested or do not require a passing score for high school graduation is not intended to improve the overall quality or cohesiveness of an educational program.…

In this article, the authors compare texts, times, technologies, and trails in mathematics lessons in five European countries (Flanders, England, Finland, Hungary and Spain). They start by discussing the provision and use of textbooks. After this they discuss lesson lengths and their impact on learners. They consider the extent of technology…

Although block scheduling has become increasingly popular in the past decade, only a few researchers have investigated its effect on academic achievement. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the effects of block scheduling on academic achievement between 115 high school students who received instruction via a 4x4 block schedule and…

Blogs and the whole gamut of interactive, Web-based tools are redefining how we connect with people and content on the Internet. This is the widely discussed next step known as Web 2.0, a truly revolutionary concept in which pervasive interactivity, where multitudes of users online actively exchange or contribute content, will transform the very…

We examined the challenges faced by 4 high-need urban schools when trying to implement Success for All (SFA). We wanted to understand SFA instruction as well as how SFA fit into the larger school context. Over a span of almost 2 years, we observed 45 SFA lessons (21 complete and 24 partial) across the 4 schools, taught by 30 teachers. We analyzed…

No other innovation in education in the United States has as much potential for improving education and reducing costs as the year-round operation of schools. Contrary to popular perception, the 9-month school calendar is not deeply imbedded in America's education system; throughout American history, the school calendar has responded to the…

Recent reform in Finnish elementary-level schools is affecting secondary and higher education as well. The five articles in this Bulletin describe some of the changes. "The Goals of School Democracy Reform" is a statement of educational goals: a democratic citizenry, educational planning coincident with national goals, the guarantee of…

We report on a two-year NSF-funded project to strengthen connections among science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. One component of this project was to produce some initial data on the effectiveness of Interdisciplinary Lively Applications Projects (ILAPs) in teaching science and engineering undergraduates. ILAPs are…

There are only a handful of formal studies that examined the impact of changes in school starting time on student learning and behavior. The Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement (CAREI) at the University of Minnesota is a leader in this research and identified the impact of changes in school starting times across the school,…