Controversies about the choice of books in school libraries raise two perplexing questions: (1) To what extent does the First Amendment allow the government to control what students read in schools? (2) If educational materials are to be selected, who makes these decisions? Several relevant court cases are reviewed. (Author/IS)

Describes a computer program that generates a bank of items for second-language learning drills, including the differential processing of nouns, adjectives, and verbs. The program is used in a New Testament Greek course at the University of the Orange Free State (South Africa), and the exercises generated are tied directly to the course textbook.…

Discusses the importance of television in history and citizenship education in Soviet schools. Describes studies dealing with the effects of mass communications media on the educational process. Urges the integration of subject matter conveyed to students via television with that acquired in the classroom to foster development of theoretical…

Introduces ways to assess students' reading ability and improve reading of social studies textbooks. Combines reading scores from Iowa Tests of Basic Skills and individual sessions to understand students' reading ability levels. Uses cooperative reading groups, reading labs, and whole-class oral reading to improve skills. Suggests pre- and…

Contends that women leaders, especially women who were warriors, have been ignored by history textbooks. Describes historical research on the roles of women in military history. Presents the story of three women who became significant military leaders during the medieval period. (CFR)

To explore issue-specific barriers to teaching environmental issues, the authors investigated secondary science teachers' perceived current and preferred teaching levels for 23 environmental issues and perceived barriers to teaching the selected issues. Subjects in this graduate project were 41 secondary science teachers self-selected to answer a…

If, as James Anderson stated, a nation committed to democracy and equality has every reason to be ashamed on "Brown v. Board of Education's" 50th anniversary, why the commemoration and celebration? By revising Anderson's challenge to examine the complex role of "Brown" in the nation's memory and history, this chapter…

This research investigated the impact of personalizing mathematical word problems using individual student interests on student problem-solving performance. Ten word problems were selected randomly from a mathematics textbook to create a series of two assessments. Both assessments contained problems exactly as they appeared in the textbook and…

Authored by the teaching staff of T-560: Meeting the Challenge of Individual Differences at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, this article reflects on potential applications of universal design for learning (UDL) in university courses, illustrating major points with examples from T-560. The article explains the roots of UDL in cognitive…

Though it has been rightly said that what is wrong with education cannot be fixed with technology; there is no doubt that modern life is dominated by technology. There is universal recognition of the need to use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in education as we enter the era of globalization where the free flow of information via…

This study investigated the impact of cognitive organizers, with the integration of technology, Inspiration 6 software, compared to a traditional textbook instruction format on content-area learning in high school inclusive social studies classes. Twenty-nine tenth-grade students in general education and 20 students with mild disabilities were…

This report discusses a practicum designed to offer support strategies to 55 at-risk students in the eighth grade, 53 of whom indicated they were unable to read their present textbooks even with teachers' help and guidance. The major goals of the intervention were to assist the at-risk students in achieving a score of 70 percent in all content…

The report describes an Ontario (Canada) project to establish standards for the written and oral languages of its natives, including two language families and 13 languages still present in the province. The project has two streams: (1) a series of language conferences intended to establish consensus within an entire community regarding standard…

This study focuses on the visibility and acceptance of alternative family compositions in public schools. A total of 35 parent/caregivers and 24 teachers from three elementary schools in Vermont were surveyed. A review of school textbooks, curricula, and school contact forms was undertaken to determine the degree to which they represented…

A course in business Chinese offered at Brigham Young University (Utah) is described. In the six semesters the course has been offered to date, enrollment has increased steadily and it has drawn students from business, Chinese, and a variety of other majors. Many students had served religious missions in Chinese-speaking countries. In developing…