Discusses the revised definition of mental retardation in a 1992 manual by the American Association on Mental Retardation. The key principles that provided the foundation for the development of the new definition are described, including the paradigm shift from facility-based to services-based to supports-based models. (CR)

Argues that an educational definition of mental retardation has to be sensitive to the motivational self-system and the self-regulatory processes that underpin performance of students with mental retardation. The theory of motivational orientation that explains the differences in students with intrinsic motivation or extrinsic motivation is…

Describes a unit of study that promotes environmental mathematics. Automobile license plates are used for practice in classifying, examining the place value of digits, analyzing the numbers on the plates, and measurement. (AIM)

Describes a year-long project which combined the curricula of a language arts class, a library skills class, and an art class as 3 teachers and 163 sixth-grade students designed and created a 58-foot mural depicting the Dewey Decimal System. Notes that the mural adorns the school library and assists library users in locating the volumes they seek.…

Proposes a model that assists in understanding indexing on the World Wide Web and presents an experiment assessing the validity of Inverse Document Frequency (IDF) as a term weighting strategy for Web documents. Findings indicate that IDF scores are not stable in the heterogeneous and dynamic context of the Web. (Author/AEF)

Discusses detailed classification systems, sophisticated alphabetical indexing systems and reasons for the abandonment of complex indexing systems. The suggested structure for indexing the Internet or other large electronic collections of documents is based on that of book indexes: specific headings with coined modifications. (Author/AEF)

This paper responds to criticisms concerning the applicability of the 1992 American Association on Mental Retardation definition of mental retardation to preschool children. Criticisms focusing on the elimination of classification levels, limited relevance of adaptive behavior areas, and difficulties delineating kinds and intensities of supports…

Presents a five-step method to develop the critical numeracy knowledge of numerically intimidated students. Examines the method in detail, discussing Piagetian diagnostic tools and how to adapt the Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome (SOLO) taxonomy to teach critical numeracy. (CMK)

Proposes and tests a community college classification system based on curricular characteristics and their association with institutional characteristics. Seeks readily available data correlates to represent percentage of a college's course offerings that are in the liberal arts. A simple two-category classification system using total enrollment…

Describes the visualization of a navigation classification scheme in an information retrieval (IR) system. Highlights include Charles Cutter's rules for creating a dictionary catalog; user needs; an example of undergraduate research using this scheme; and user interaction with the IR system. (Contains 64 references.) (Author/LRW)

This article discusses how the broadening of the federal definition of giftedness will possibly increase the number of students identified as gifted. Far from dumbing down the definition, this article argues the new definition will allow many minority children to be identified and served as gifted students. (Contains 8 references.) (CR)

A replication study compared 86 petition students who received course substitutions for the college foreign language (FL) requirement with 40 nonpetition students who fulfilled the requirement by passing FL courses. Findings indicate more than half of all the students did not meet criteria for learning disability classification. (Contains…

Examines trends in second language (L2) communication strategy (CS) research. A comprehensive review is included of the relevant literature from the last two decades, with particular reference to the different ways in which CSs have been defined and to the corresponding influences on the organization of strategy taxonomies. (92 references)…

Identifies cognitive strategies used during the categorization of qualitative data and investigates how various factors may be related to the testimonial validity of the categories. Essay writers ranked sets of categories in terms of overall quality and rated them while thinking aloud. Think-aloud protocols for the "best" and…

Three studies examined the ability of 8- and 9-year-olds and young adults to use sample monotonicity and diversity information according to the similarity-coverage model of category-based induction. Found that children's difficulty with this information was independent of category level, and may be based on preferences for other strategies…