This booklet summarizes some of the best practices in helping infants, toddlers and pre-schoolers maximize their language skills prior to school entry. Children who are well prepared by their parents, caretakers or pre-school teachers can readily manage the transition to the academic demands of the early school years and are more likely to learn…

Economic, demographic, technological, and practice factors outside the health professions that will influence education and practice in the future are outlined, and critical educational components (sciences, epidemiology, public health, quantitative skills, literacy, information retrieval and use) and elements in the academic and clinical…

The Skills Reinforcement Project was designed to increase basic mathematics and language arts skills of disadvantaged and minority youth. Forty-five minority and economically disadvantaged sixth graders who participated in a 110-hour program made statistically greater gains in mathematics than 45 comparison sixth graders and nonsignificant gains…

To examine the hypothesis that alternative routes to teacher certification are more likely than traditional routes to recruit successful urban school teachers, beliefs and practices of 45 secondary English and mathematics novice teachers from both routes were studied. Findings confirm the importance of teacher sensitivity to urban multicultural…

Presents findings made by the Campus Retention Committee at Prince George's Community College in Maryland regarding the improvement of student persistence and achievement at the college. Recommends strengthening developmental course work, mathematics education, and student support programs. Includes eight data tables and 17 references. (JDI)

Examines effects of an afterschool science program on minority female students' attitudes toward science, engineering, and mathematics. The program, which incorporated cooperative learning, lands-on activities, mentoring, and role models, positively influenced participants' attitudes to (and subsequent participation in) these subject areas.…

Data was released from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in the 1980s that showed a decrease in students' problem-solving abilities and conceptual understanding but an increase in performance on items requiring lower-ordered thinking skills. To address this decline in performance, leading disciplinary organizations, such as…

For the first time in the 30-year history of the Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science, the organization is focusing on the nurturing of scientific talent in preschoolers and very young children. SACNAS, whose mission is to encourage Chicano/Latino and American Indian students to pursue graduate education and advanced…

Early childhood educators and school personnel increasingly will be working with children and families from diverse economic, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds. While the student population is rapidly becoming diverse, the teaching force remains predominantly White and from middle-class backgrounds (Whitebook, 2003). This growing…

McNamee and Chen describe the Bridging assessment system they developed to measure performance on specific learning tasks for pre-K through 3rd-grade students. Bridging assesses an individual student's skill level on learning tasks in five curricular areas: language arts and literacy, visual arts, mathematics, science, and performing arts. The…

Most other nations have a very different approach to measuring academic achievement at the end of high school and signaling that information to universities and other interested parties. In Australia, Denmark, England, Scotland, Finland, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, and many Canadian and German provinces, for example, high school exit…

The federal government's more than thirty-year attempt to solve the problems of poverty--in particular, the diminished life chances of children from low-income households--has been, according to these authors, largely unsuccessful. Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 is, and has been, the most heavily funded…

The research question asked was "Will those children ages three and four who have intensive play experiences in play-based preschools and who can perform at high levels of LEGO building as constructional play also show high levels of mathematical achievement later in formal school settings?". Thus, this study attempts to establish a…

Over the course of the fifteen years since 1991, Latvia has been undergoing rapid political changes from a party controlled state to a market economy. These changes have affected the system of education. The issue of quality and equity of educational outcomes is gaining increasing importance as schools are expected to adjust to the new economic…

Homework gives students an opportunity to practice important college-level physics skills. A switch to Web-based homework alters the nature of feedback received, potentially changing the pedagogical benefit. Calculus- and algebra-based introductory physics students enrolled in large paired lecture sections at a public university completed homework…