A new approach to teaching and curriculum takes seriously the knowledge children have when they enter school. Teachers use the knowledge each child has to make instructional decisions so that the child learns mathematics with understanding, how to solve problems, and the computational skills. Research concerning the problem-solving strategies…

Efforts undertaken to meet the challenge of diversity at the City University of New York's Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) are described in this five-part conference presentation. In the first part, BMCC's president, Augusta Souza Kappner, provides an overview of the ethnic and demographic composition of the college's student body…

The stated goal of Individual Computer-Assisted Instruction (ICAI) research is the development of computer software that combines much of the subject matter being studied, any particular student's learning schema, and the pedagogical knowledge of human tutors into a powerful one-to-one learning environment. This report describes the initial steps…

Two research reports provide results of two Ohio studies to investigate factors that influence a student not to enter a high school vocational curriculum. The studies focus on the Vanguard Joint Vocational School (JVS) and five feeder comprehensive high schools and the Lawrence County JVS and seven feeder comprehensive high schools. Both reports…

Skilled workers are needed in developing countries to facilitate economic development and to respond to a changing economy. Training is often provided by private employers, but governments must continue to play a role to help train workers in companies too small to provide training, and because training benefits society in ways too remote for…

This U.S. Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) quarterly issue contains six papers describing development of services for minority individuals with disabilities. "Goals for Improving Services to Minority Individuals with Disabilities" (Robert R. Davila) discusses the need to increase high-school graduation…

This "ERIC Flyer File" presents a collection of digests, minibibliographies, excerpts, and reprints on culturally and linguistically diverse exceptional learners. The collection of 18 items addresses 3 areas: assessment, curriculum and instruction, and parent involvement. The six resources on assessment focus on young Hispanic children…

As part of a communicative approach and to provide non-linguistic information to students, authentic videotape recordings were incorporated into the summer intensive Spanish course in the University of South Carolina's master's program in international business. Students were introduced to the tapes by first seeing segments without sound, both to…

Techniques for teaching students to use a variety of language and communication skills to improve participation and success in cross-cultural situations are outlined. The approach evolved in the context of the Naval Postgraduate School at Monterey, California, in which foreign military officers must learn strategies for effective communication in…

This paper is organized as a dialogue between two female administrators, the superintendent of program and the superintendent of operations, from the Wellington County Board of Education in southwestern Ontario, Canada. After describing Wellington County and the organizational structure of the school board, the superintendents describe the nature…

A history of the development of the University of Kentucky Community College System (UKCCS) and selected data on 1989-90 enrollments, instructional programs, financial support, and student characteristics comprise this report. Section I focuses on enrollment, providing fall 1989 headcount data for each of the 15 UKCCS campuses aggregated by…

This paper advocates giving urgent attention to improving the education and training of educational administrators and managers, realizing the need to respond to rapid and far-reaching political and social change worldwide, and to consequent change within national educational systems. The improvement of administrative structures and the…

Teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) may be regarded as developing through several major phases that require time and guided practice. This paper describes a graduate class titled "Learning and Development in Exceptional Individuals" in which teachers learn about pedagogy and tie it to content teaching as they work with…

The Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) examined the demands of the workplace and whether young people were capable of meeting those demands. Specifically, SCANS determined the level of skills required to enter employment. Fundamental changes in the nature of work were identified; these changes were found to hold…

Focusing on the call for changes in school administration, this document reviews the nature of the educational reform movement in the 1980s before describing four trends that have fueled reform proposals. Trends described include general conditions such as the larger reform debate and the new conceptions of the appropriate organizational structure…