Brian Jacob examines challenges faced by urban districts in staffing their schools with effective teachers. He emphasizes that the problem is far from uniform. Teacher shortages are more severe in certain subjects and grades than others, and differ dramatically from one school to another. The Chicago public schools, for example, regularly receive…

Many argue that it is not at all idealistic to think that K-12 teachers can differentiate instruction to meet all children's needs while also adhering to standards and state performance testing. This article defines differentiated instruction, discusses its critical elements, and provides tips on how to start differentiation. Probably,…

This article describes the implementation of an extensive reading (ER) program with 43 first language (L1) and second language (L2) adult literacy students. Among them, 16% were nonnative speakers of English. The main principles considered in the design of the program were (a) purpose of reading, (b) reading tactics, (c) material used, and (d) …

Value-added models in education research allow researchers to explore how a wide variety of policies and measured school inputs affect the academic performance of students. Researchers typically quantify the impacts of such interventions in terms of "effect sizes", i.e., the estimated effect of a one standard deviation change in the…

Teacher leadership plays a significant role in the professional culture of many schools across the country, according to principals who value it. This is the major conclusion from a survey and telephone interviews conducted by the Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL). While limited in scope, the study confirms the contributions of teacher…

Since English has been an international language, how to enhance English levels of people by useful computer assisted learning forms or tools is a critical issue in non-English speaking countries because it definitely affects the overall competition ability of a country. With the rapid growth of wireless and mobile technologies, the mobile…

For the thirty-sixth year, the Research and Theory Division of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) is sponsoring the publication of these Proceedings. Papers published in this volume were presented at the annual AECT Convention in Anaheim, California. The Proceedings of AECT's Convention are published in two…

This study examined a four-staged leadership development continuum for school leaders in a large urban school district in the southeastern United States. The program under examination included: LEAD Program; Interim Assistant Principal Program; Intern Principal Program, and; First Year Principal Support/Interim Principal Program. Qualitative…

This manual is intended to help educators of students with disabilities select and implement a social skills program through a five-step decision process, either manually or by use of software (available in both PC-DOS and Macintosh formats). After an introductory chapter, the second chapter focuses on what social skills are, why they are…

This paper presents a review of the literature on toy play in infancy and early childhood, with an emphasis on both normal development and special considerations for young children with disabilities. Specifically, it describes children's encounters with toys within a developmental framework, identifies characteristics of the child and aspects of…

This paper identifies an emerging capability in technology and considers relevant applications through school-site administration that could release teachers' creative human potential in ways beneficial to students. The paper examines the use of multimedia authoring tools in relation to curriculum development and enhancement, instructional…

The Adult New Reader Collection-Model Project proposed to serve five targeted groups by providing literacy, language development, and English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) materials. The five groups included: literacy tutors; students identified by the staff and matched to their trained tutors; adult library users not connected to a literacy program…

In response to its space limitations, the Robert Manning Strozier Library at Florida State University decided to reduce the size and rate of growth of its federal documents collection. The committee charged with the task decided that the first step was to codify selection/deselection procedures into a written policy. The policy had to be…

This paper describes how comic books are used as instructional materials in an intensive English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) course and discusses the rationale for using them. The students in the course have low-intermediate English language skills with limited discourse and interactive competence. Comic books are used because they are authentic,…

A research project was undertaken to determine: (1) the relationships between scores on the Florida College-Level Academic Skills Test (CLAST) and prior scores on corresponding entry placement tests; (2) the relationships between course completion patterns and performance on CLAST subtests; and (3) the relationships between grades in reading,…