This fact sheet summarizes promising secondary education practices that special educators can employ to help improve the post-school outcomes of students with exceptional learning needs. These practices are organized into the following five categories: student-focused planning, student development, interagency collaboration, family involvement,…

E-Referencer is an expert intermediary system for searching library online public access catalogs (OPACs) on the World Wide Web. It is implemented as a proxy server that mediates the interaction between the user and Boolean OPACs. It transforms a Boolean OPAC into a retrieval system with many of the search capabilities of Web search engines.…

This study investigated the attitudes and opinions of 970 students with and without learning disabilities regarding the use of computers for school-related work. Using a quasi-experimental design with three non-equivalent groups, within and between subjects effects were studied using a survey instrument. The students in grades 5 through 12 at…

The guide is designed to assist adult literacy and English-as-a-Second-Language staff developers, teachers, and administrators in using the World Wide Web as an instructional resource and to construct meaningful Web-based instructional activities and projects. It is divided into six sections. The first gives an overview of the varied capabilities…

This paper describes the Chicagoland Deaf Parent to Hearing Parent Project, an initiative intended to bridge the cultural gaps between the deaf community and the hearing parents and school personnel who are nurturing and educating children who are deaf. Through a series of workshops that take place in schools and community centers, parents who are…

This booklet is designed for administrators who are being encouraged to build a new, or remodel an old, school facility. It describes the planning process from perceived need to the hiring of an architect; the duties of the architect, bondsman, and contractor; school bonds and finances; disability access requirements; force account; economical…

This TIP contains information on the best practice guidelines on case management for substance abuse treatment providers. It serves to educate program coordinators and facilitators about the factors to consider as they decide to modify or implement case management activities. Many substance abuse clients arrive for treatment with a number of other…

The teacher's guide of "Assessing Toxic Risk" aims to help students conduct scientific research on relevant environmental topics. Using the research protocols in this book, students learn to carry out experiments known as bioassays. In this way, the toxicity of substances is evaluated by measuring its effect on living things. The text is…

Educators and learners have diverse thinking style preferences. Recognition of this difference in preferences is very important in the design of a curriculum and the way it is taught. Educators are often unaware of the way learners think and learn. Cataloging and classification can only be taught effectively if the diversity in thinking style is…

This report presents findings of a three-year study to examine how preservice teachers develop an awareness of the needs of academically diverse learners, including gifted students, and implement and/or modify instruction to meet those needs. Preservice teachers were assigned to one of two treatment groups: either participation in an interactive…

This book with an accompanying 21-minute videocassette is designed for schools and communities who want to change mathematics and science education to address the needs of students with disabilities. After an introduction that describes educational reforms in Montana, chapters include: (1) "Opening Up to All Learners," which discusses…

This paper makes basic assumptions regarding the development of an intranet architecture that will actively promote the cognitive apprenticeship of a new community of learners. The authors consider the intranet as a dynamic and virtual environment in which individuals may communicate, share resources, and reciprocally generate and organize…

When in the "zone of proximal development" for a particular skill or piece of information, a learner is ready to learn but lacks certain prerequisites. Scaffolding is an interactive process in which a teacher or facilitator assists such a learner to build a "structure" to contain and frame the new information. Scaffolding can…

This paper presents tips for designing an instructional World Wide Web site, providing illustrations from a site developed using Blackboard's Courseinfo that is used in teaching a college technical writing course. The first section discusses overall site architecture, including working with the right equipment, making the leap to an online…

This study investigated designer background characteristics and contextual variables that were hypothesized to influence the incorporation of motivational components in the design of instructional materials, as well as the factors that may affect the perceived level of a project's success. A hypothesized model was developed that depicted…