The addition of new residential manpower and support centers has made the Job Corps more flexible, by keeping trainees in their home areas and preparing them to work there. (BH)

Describes introductory courses in botany and zoology taught in small conceptual units called minicourses to introduce students to concepts common to both courses. (IR)

Suggests ten guidelines to follow to ensure the success of writing programs. (KS)

Five focus group sessions involving 35 persons associated with Research for Better Schools had to initiate a needs assessment. Tapes and transcripts of the sessions were analyzed. Analyses support the value of the focus groups in providing input to the design of the needs assessment survey. (TJH)

Proposes evaluation guidelines that are tailored specifically for adult basic education programs and reflect the issues of content and delivery typical of many local programs. Includes a sample evaluation tool. (JOW)

Among the opinions of the deans of colleges of agriculture at the major land-grant universities in the 50 states on cooperative extension within today's changing economy are the following: extension needs a system approach; it should operate more on a regional basis; and staff should be more involved in research. (JOW)

Zenger reviews an article on training that he wrote 16 years ago. He looks at the progress made and suggests that every profession has room for improvement. The text of the original article is included. (JOW)

A literature review synthesized recommendations of 58 reports for improving juvenile justice. Extension implications include the following: focus on meaningful youth programming with opportunities for healthy social interaction, multilevel teams and collaborations, attention to different needs of urban and rural youth, and creative approaches to…

Using data from Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count, this issue looks at changes in cohort composition. The analysis addresses the changing composition of the Achieving the Dream student cohorts from 2002 to 2005. The data show that at Achieving the Dream colleges, the percentage of Hispanic students increased over the four cohorts…

The purpose of this study was to develop and test a model which addresses special education program evaluation needs. As such, the focus was on development. Often development and research are seen as one (e.g., Department of R&D; Director of R&D). They are, however distinctively different in process and product. The model developed provides…

This paper considers a set of research and assessment strategies used to evaluate programme outcomes in the Stanford Teacher Education Programme (STEP) during a period of programme redesign over 10 years. These strategies include surveys and interviews of students' perceptions of programme elements and their own preparedness, observations of their…

Physical education teacher education (PETE) programs have contributed to the marginalization of physical education in three significant ways. First, the nature of content knowledge is contested. Is content knowledge disciplinary knowledge, or is movement the content knowledge of our field? Second, PETE has failed to produce a critical mass of K-12…

Perhaps a decade ago, accreditation agencies might have been satisfied with a list of student learning outcomes and some evidence that students achieved them. More and more, accreditors request evidence of "improvement". It is not enough to merely demonstrate that what one is doing works reasonably well; one must also show that he or she…

School counselors are required to implement accountability strategies in order to increase student performance and contribute to closing the achievement gap. This study investigates the beliefs and practices of school counselors who have earned national recognition for implementing comprehensive school counseling programs based on identifying…