Intended for vocational education teachers, the booklet is designed to provide helpful information to assist teachers in better understanding special needs students in Pinellas County, Florida. Chapter 1 provides definitions, general information on methods of dealing with several categories of handicapping conditions, including mental retardation…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 7 titles deal with the following topics: (1) two approaches to teaching public speaking at the community college level, (2) case studies from a communication skills peer-tutoring program for underachieving college freshmen, (3)…

The 310 project is an educational research and demonstration program with learning centers located in five Missouri correctional institutions. These are the Missouri State Penitentiary, the Missouri Intermediate Reformatory, the Missouri Training Center for Men, the Central Missouri Correctional Center, and the Ozark Correctional Center. Manned by…

The premise that students are an untapped educational resource and that they provide teachers with a source of individualized instruction provided the impetus for this study. Researchers had two objectives: one, to determine the possibility of developing a typology of peer helping behavior within the classroom; and, two, if possible, to use this…

On the theory that a large part of children's learning comes from their peers, a successful, innovative tutorial system has been initiated for ESL (English as a second language) junior high school students. Bilingual eighth and ninth grade honor students representing the languages spoken by the ESL students are recruited to help tutor…

The establishment of Research and Instructional (R and I) Units is discussed in terms of their utility and applicability for research needs. These units are said to provide a propitious setting for rigorous educational research. Two experiments in R and I units are described--one dealing with ways to implement feedback to students on their school…

As an expansion of ED 026 320, the model for a Human Relations School sketched in this document is an attempt to answer these questions: What would it be like if a school were to see itself as a laboratory for living and learning in which the test that is known about human interaction were utilized? How would it be organized? What would be its…

A study interviewed 37 Canadian sex workers in 4 cities to determine how they acquire a working knowledge of safer sex practices and what that knowledge constituted. Findings indicated the vast majority exhibited high levels of knowledge and efficacy regarding safer sex practices; sex workers took the initiative to obtain information and engage in…

Using a Vygotskian perspective, this study investigated the possibility of secondary school second language students providing scaffolding for each other's learning during dyadic verbal interaction on a dictogloss task. Participants in the study were 19 English-as-a-Second-Language students from China, Hong Kong, and Korea, who studied at a girl's…

In a year-long study of classroom reform toward more constructivist teaching and learning practices, 125 rural seventh graders engaged in design-based inquiry and learned research and communication skills by designing hypermedia materials to teach peers. Data from one participating teacher illustrate the evolution of new instructional practices…

Examines two case studies of multigrade teachers, and focuses on their diverse teaching styles. Questions what are the critical issues in multigrade teaching, and whether it is possible to identify "best practice" in the multigrade classroom. Suggests necessary skills that should be developed in preservice education as preparation for…

Each Tuesday during the fall of 2002, teams of high school students from three South Carolina counties conducted a four-hour polymer institute for their peers. In less than two months, over 300 students visited the Charleston County Public Library in Charleston, South Carolina, to explore DNA, nylon, rubber, gluep, and other polymers. Teams of…

This study investigated learning vocabulary in group work at university in Vietnam. The students were studied in two kinds of group settings, "unassisted" and "assisted", the first consisting of five students from the same class level and the second of four from the same class and a student from a higher class. Differences were…

This report is one of nine detailed case studies of small urban high schools that served as the foundation for the Education Resource Strategies (ERS) report "Strategic Designs: Lessons from Leading Edge Small Urban High Schools." These nine schools were dubbed "Leading Edge Schools" because they stand apart from other high…

A 5-year study, conducted in two schools on the Texas-Mexico border, is investigating the effectiveness of peer coaching as a professional development strategy for teachers in two-way bilingual education programs. A group of 24 teachers, half bilingual and Hispanic and half monolingual and Anglo participated in the study. For each, classroom…