Stories capture the richness and nuances of meaning in everyday existence and give insight into the complexity of our experiences and understandings. They can evoke an emotional response in the reader, which moves them beyond the literary experience to a more "lived" and embodied experience. This article is concerned with…

The purpose of this study was to examine the feasibility of a range of strategies to engage and to enhance secondary school nurse involvement in teenage smoking prevention and cessation. School nurses were willing to assist students to quit smoking, but they felt unprepared. Information provided by nurses involved in a three-stage review,…

In this article, the authors describe the Georgetown University Consortium Project (GCP), a three-year assessment study designed to document the learning abroad of students from Georgetown University, The University of Minnesota, Rice University, and Dickinson College. Funded by two Department of Education Title VI grants, this ongoing three-year…

The purpose of this descriptive study was to pilot test an Asthma Assessment Interview (AAI) and to determine the approximate age a child with asthma is capable to self-carry an inhaler. A random sample of 34 students with asthma (Grades K through 10) from a midwestern school district were interviewed by the school nurse using the AAI, which…

The following study explores faculty attitudes toward students with disabilities at a large research university. In the first phase of a three-year demonstration project, 14 instructional staff, including teaching assistants, faculty, and faculty serving as administrators, were interviewed to determine their informational needs and attitudes…

This study reports on teaching practices in science classrooms of Indonesian lower secondary schools in rural areas. Using six schools from three districts in the province of Kalimantan Selatan as the sample, this study found that most teaching practices in science classrooms in rural schools were teacher-centred with students copying notes.…

In this study, retrospective interviews were used to investigate reliability (and thus validity) threats to a computerized ESL listening comprehension test administered at a university in the US. The participants in the investigation, six international graduate students, were asked to respond to semi- and open-ended questions during individual…

School improvement literature emphasizes collaboration of teachers, parents, and community members. Schools are challenged to create mutually beneficial partnerships that result in improved student performance. One source of challenge is schools' organizational structures and processes do not contribute to full and meaningful involvement of…

School change is inevitable. As a human institution, schools are in a constant state of transformation, and individual teachers adapt or provide the impetus for that transformation all the time. The question, then, is not whether there will be change, but what change there will be--a question complicated by the fact that change means different…

As states have become more active in establishing curriculum content standards and related assessments disappointingly little attention has been paid to policy efforts that create learning opportunities for students to meet the new standards. This study examines one state policy designed to bolster the opportunity to learn by mandating additional…

This unique study used qualitative research methodology to investigate the first 18 years of parenting experiences of a mother of a child with autism. The purpose of this single case study was to record and understand the effect of autism on a mother's life retrospectively, to identify and analyse issues and themes that have shaped her life, to…

Sequencing of the human genome has ushered in a new era of biology. The technologies developed to facilitate the sequencing of the human genome are now being applied to the sequencing of other genomes. In 2004, a partnership was formed between Washington University School of Medicine Genome Sequencing Center's Outreach Program and Washington…

Educational administrators are spending considerably more time and effort on issues involving special services for disadvantaged and special needs students than they have in the past. In light of current school improvement initiatives to improve the academic success for all students, it is likely that this will even increase. Passage of No Child…

This article reports on a large scale implementation of personal response units in three introductory science courses at the University of Western Ontario in Canada. An online survey of students was conducted to gather their perceptions on the uses of the devices, triangulated by participant observation of the classes and email interviews with the…

When analyzing young people's media projects, it is easy to get excited about "youth voice" as a site of free expression and social critique. Tempting as this is, media scholars, as well as young producers and adult mentors, note the varied, often contradictory, voices and interests at play within youth videos, photography exhibitions, and other…