Help struggling readers understand content area texts with research-based, innovative classroom tools that foster lifelong reading comprehension habits. This book presents easy-to-use activities organized around six habits of reading comprehension: (1) Organizing text information by sculpting the main idea and summarizing; (2) Connecting to…

With the increased use of computerized adaptive testing, which allows for continuous testing, new concerns about test security have evolved, one being the assurance that items in an item pool are safeguarded from theft. In this paper, the risk of score inflation and procedures to detect test takers using item preknowledge are explored. When test…

Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition (PLAR) is a new field, but it has a long history, since children have always learned from adults and demonstrated their competence by observation of their work or by the quality of their products or services. Later, formal learning became more valuable and recognized school credentials paved the way to…

This report contains suggestions on how adults can secure college credit for past education and life experience. According to the report, there are eight categories of life experience that can be worth credit: work; homemaking; volunteer work; noncredit learning; travel; recreational activities and hobbies; reading, viewing, and listening; and…

This article summarizes findings and recommendations about how to apply research on teaching and learning to classroom practice presented in "How People Learn: Bridging Research and Practice." Section 1 examines existing links between learning research and education practice. Section 2 highlights the ways that people learn, noting three…

This guide is designed to help Minnesota high school students in their educational planning and to encourage colleges and universities to state clearly their policies in granting college credit for successful completion of Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate (IB) examinations in high school. The guide also represents certification…

This study investigated the relationship between preservice teachers' dominant intelligence(s) and picture book preferences. Participants completed the quiz, "Where Does Your True Intelligence Lie?" to determine their dominant intelligence(s). They also reviewed and ranked 21 picture books, chosen to represent each of the seven intelligences,…

Content area reading instruction includes two elements: the information presented in subject matter text, and the plan that teachers use to help students understand the content. According to research and interviews with social studies teachers, there is a high failure rate in the social studies content area because children have problems…

This study investigated whether there was a significant relationship between the predominant teaching approach to which an individual had been exposed during school life and: (1) level of communication apprehension (CA); and (2) preferred teaching approach if the individual became a teacher. A sample of 61 student teachers in the middle of their…

This study compared the instructional decision-making of expert and novice special educators in familiar instructional settings, investigating whether they differed in how they allocated attention to different instructional themes in the classroom. Participants were 38 expert special educators and special education student teachers. Student…

This study examined what 16 female family and consumer sciences (FCS) preservice teachers learned given 1 instructional environment. Participants were enrolled in three FCS teaching methods and curriculum courses. A 2-hour lesson on classroom management using small group theory was selected. On the first day of class, participants completed…

Multidimensional knowledge structures, described from a constructivist perspective and aligned with the "Mind as Rhizome" metaphor, provide support for constructivist learning strategies. This qualitative study was conducted to seek empirical support for a description of multidimensional knowledge structures, focusing on the…

Education for a democratic society has been a powerful, long-standing rationale for the entire public school curriculum, but the idea has special relevance for social studies education. This study used action research and qualitative case study to examine the extent to which notions of democratic citizenship developed in the personal theories of…

This study sought to investigate the educational outcomes of the College-Level Examination Program® (CLEP®) for students who earned credit through CLEP compared to those students who earned comparable credit through the Advanced Placement Program® (AP®) and through traditional course enrollment. In order to evaluate the short- and long-term…

This paper describes different approaches that have been used in research on reading, and reports on a study of reading comprehension in fourth-, sixth-, and eighth-grade students. Findings confirm that there are distinct age-related developmental levels in children's comprehension of literature. (PP)