Human service educators constantly struggle with how to best teach students the communication skills required of entry-level human service professionals. While teaching such skills is easier in a traditional face-to-face environment, teaching communication skills via distance learning presents its own challenges. Developing interactive web-based…

The International Child Development Initiatives (ICDI) promotes the wellbeing of children growing up in difficult circumstances. ICDI works to improve policies and practices affecting these children by doing research and training. ICDI believes in the power of children and young people, supporting their rights and addressing the underlying causes…

The purpose of this action research project report was to increase reading comprehension by using cooperative learning. Reading comprehension was a concern for the three teacher researchers at both research sites. There were 51 first and second grade students, 28 elementary teachers, and 51 families of the first and second grade students involved…

Each child In Finland and in Estonia receives preschool training for a year before going to school, based on a new national framework curriculum of preschool education. The aim of the present study was to compare children's learning achievements in nine target areas, based on the teacher's evaluations at the end of the preschool year, in both…

This paper reports on one aspect of a study examining activities, partners, and settings of 20 preschoolers ranging in age from 28 to 45 months. The children were drawn from two cultural communities (both white): in one community parents worked in professional occupations; in the second group, parents were in non-professional, working class…

Readers Theater, a combination of storytelling and dramatic elements, is recommended as a technique for use in the English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) classroom. Among its advantages are that it incorporates four language skill areas (Listening, speaking, reading, writing), uses cultural materials, and motivates students by using language in a…

The practicum reported was designed to improve listening and speaking skills of 30 (grades 7-11) learners of Arabic as a second language. The teacher/researcher used these classroom instructional strategies: introducing carefully selected dialectal vocabulary and language forms; concentrating only on oral skills; avoiding heavy introduction of…

A task force examined New York State's role in providing resources and information to employers desiring to upgrade the skills of their current workers. The following were the task force's 12 major findings: (1) upgrading the skills of New York's existing work force is vital to the state's economic future; (2) all workers need opportunities for…

In the areas of audiology and speech science, computer technology has moved to the forefront in both the clinical and laboratory settings. It is imperative that students in both speech-language pathology and audiology acquire fundamental skills with all aspects of computer technology in order to maintain professional marketability. A survey of 75…

The impact of school-agency partnerships on the professional development of the agency personnel working with teachers on partnership teams was examined in a qualitative study of 18 of 157 natural resources, business, and health care agency professionals identified as having participated in elementary school-based partnerships for 1-6 years in a…

A study was undertaken to determine the effectiveness of reading comprehension strategies in improving the reading skills of underprepared students at a community college. The instructional strategies, which included determining main ideas of passages, drawing inferences and conclusions, and building vocabulary within the context of readings, were…

This publication contains seven peer-reviewed papers from a conference on college developmental education with the theme of student success. The papers are: (1) "Reversing the Academic Probation Dilemma" by John Foreman and Nancy Ann Rossi on programming for students on academic probation; (2) "Reading and Writing: Tools for Problem…

This paper proposes a new model for developing information access skills in an academic environment. In order to meet the increasing demand for "research competence" among students and faculty, it is necessary to move beyond traditional lecture formats and develop interactive multimedia instructional units which exploit ongoing advances…

An ongoing series of studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign concerning cross-cultural interpretation of implicature in conversation is discussed. Implicature is defined as the process of making inferences about the meaning of an utterance in the context in which it occurs. The studies focus on non-native speakers' (NNSs')…

This paper presents proven strategies and benefits of integrating technology into the language-arts curriculum and instruction. Benefits include creating a risk-free learning environment; increasing student empowerment; providing the opportunity for students to practice skills in meaningful contexts; and increasing interest in reading and writing.…