This article provides an overview of policymaking in relation to state and local district testing and accountability and concludes by identifying continuing policy issues and strategies for local implementation of standards-based secondary education that aligns with current testing and accountability policies. Governance models for curriculum…

Article describes a substance-abuse prevention program, Four-Fold Prevention, designed to specifically focus on four primary areas of social support-parents, schools, communities, and peers. This program enhances positive and supportive relationships among children and influencing adults and peers by opening the lines of communication about…

The research presented in this paper is a study of the values underpinning the curriculum and teaching of current Australian degree-level youth work courses. The paper looks at the implications that values raise for the introduction of competency-based training in the youth and community services sector. The paper raises some of the potential…

In recent years, great emphasis has been placed on providing all students access to the general education curriculum (e.g., Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, No Child Left Behind Act). Given the diversity found among today's student population, both general and special education teachers struggle to find methodologies that enhance the…

An impediment to teaching that occurs with many students who have severe disabilities is problem behavior during teaching sessions. This paper describes "preference-based teaching", a recently developed means of reducing problem behavior by making teaching programs enjoyable for students. Preference-based teaching begins with actions taken prior…

In this study, we seek a better understanding of how individuals and their daily interactions shape and reshape social structures that constitute a classroom community. Moreover, we provide insight into how discourse and classroom interactions shape the nature of a learning community, as well as which aspects of the classroom culture may be…

Micronutrient malnutrition (MM) is a global health problem that affects the national socioeconomic stability of an affected country. This article describes a multimedia training tool, the Micronutrient Action Plan instructional tool (MAPit), which has been designed to support public health professionals' efforts to eliminate MM. An overview and…

This article discusses concerns with the No Child Left Behind definition of scientifically based research and its preference for random-assignment experiments from a single/within subject research perspective. A comprehensive program of research that can focus on the bridging the gap between research and practice is proposed. (CR)

Increasingly, professional university programmes seek to develop graduates' generic skills and capabilities and their capacity to transfer skills to new situations. Professionally-oriented study should demonstrate not only academic rigour, but also genuine relevance and value to the profession. In disciplines such as science and engineering this…

Training firefighters is a difficult process in which emotions and nonverbal behaviors play an important role. The authors have developed a mixed reality environment for training a small group of firefighters, which takes into account these aspects. The assessment of the environment was made up of three phases: assessing the virtual agents to…

The introduction of an open-ended MicroWorlds based assignment in a pre-service teaching degree produced interesting results. Students engaged with the task at very high levels and produced work of high quality; so much so that marking trends were reversed. This paper explores the design and implementation of the task and how for many students it…

Learning technologies are becoming a common, and in many cases essential, component of the contemporary learning environment. As such, those who design, implement and control these encompassing technologies have emerged as major contributors to the success (or otherwise) of such systems. This article considers the power and responsibilities of…

Work-integrated learning (WIL) programmes that combine on-campus classroom-based study with off-campus authentic work experience are a growing area of interest internationally. Despite widespread practice of WIL, there are few reports that shed light on appropriate pedagogies for the work experience in particular. As with any form of education,…

This paper discusses the design and implementation of a task-oriented collaborative learning (and training) experimental project that was carried out with future language teachers. More specifically, a class of sixteen French students enrolled in a Masters of Education course were asked to create multimedia resources for a group of Australian…

Motivated by a consideration of the machine-mediated nature of human interaction in web-based tutoring, we propose the construction of artificial expressions, displays which reflect users' felt bodily experience, to support the development of greater empathy in remote interaction. To demonstrate the concept of artificial expressions we have…