Teacher intervention is often necessary to prevent independent study assignments from becoming lonely and threatening to gifted students. Active listening techniques can help teachers interpret comments that students make to gain peer acceptance or to mask their fear of failure. Students also need help planning, scheduling, and setting realistic…

Elementary-school learning-disabled, emotionally disabled, educable mentally retarded, and nonhandicapped students (N=122) were observed during written language instruction, to document writing tasks and student responding. Extreme variability was found in the amount of time individual students spent in writing activities or in receiving written…

The article presents examples of emotionally disturbed children's reactions to separation from a teacher with whom they have become involved. Suggestions are offered for facilitating healthy separation from the teacher. (JDD)

Issues that face learning-disabled students and their parents during the transition from a secondary to a postsecondary setting are explored, and recommendations are offered for consideration in resolving problems during this period. (JDD)

The relative effectiveness of three procedures for increasing vocal response to prompt in 15 preschool children with Down Syndrome was compared. Light-dimming and visual screening, when combined with positive reinforcement, were both found to be significantly more effective than positive reinforcement alone. (Author/JDD)

Discusses a teacher's difficulties in using reader response approaches to engage her students at an urban alternative high school. Examines their resistances to discussion and personal response. Offers a few approaches the teacher has been trying, with some success, to overcome these resistances. (TB)

Discusses North Central Technical College (Ohio) library's approach to bibliographic instruction through a self-instructional workbook. Topics include development of the workbook; a walking tour orientation to the library; student-faculty reactions; and advantages and disadvantages of the approach. An annotated bibliography, workbook ordering…

Describes an interdisciplinary high school course that covers the development of human history, literature, and culture from the earliest civilizations to the present, with particular emphasis on Western civilization. Provides course outlines and objectives. Highlights the content coverage, and reviews student responses to the course. (TB)

Describes part of a project that investigated pupils' attitudes to National Curriculum core and foundation subjects at Key Stage 3 during 1993 and 1994 in a range of schools across South Wales. Reports that English remains very popular (second only to physical education) among boys and girls, though particularly among girls. (TB)

Investigates the individual characteristics and perceptions of 125 Mexican American female students, including 20 interviewed students who were successful in high school science courses. It is revealed that, among the interviewed students, a positive attitude toward school, science courses, teachers, counselors, and peers existed. Perceptions of…

Uses the provocative metaphor of becoming a nudist to illustrate that teachers should write, and share their writing, with their students. Describes a program in which student teachers spent six weeks in class and seven weeks in student teaching and were required to keep journals in which they reflected on what they had learned. (PA)

This paper reviews research on observational learning, including model characteristics and observers' responses, vicarious reinforcement as implicit punishment, vicarious effects on students with problem behavior, observers' other characteristics and vicarious effects, and aggression and vicarious processes. Regular class placement of students…

Presents (in an unconventional, diary-like format) the comments of two writing instructors regarding the first author's attempt to revamp a writing course. Reflects on the current state of theoretical worry about teaching writing in a way that puts the authors in conversation with other writing teachers. (RS)

Argues that before autonomous approaches to language learning are implemented, it is necessary to gauge learners' readiness for the behavioral change that autonomy implies. Data collected from a questionnaire on learner beliefs about language learning is presented. Factor analysis of subjects' responses indicated six underlying dimensions. (41…

Describes a study to determine the results of taking a social studies course on the social studies orientations of history and geography graduate students not previously exposed to social studies. Discusses three social studies orientations: citizenship transmission, social science, and reflective inquiry. Concludes that teachers do change their…