This popular guide offers a wealth of innovative, research-based strategies for making K-12 classrooms the best learning environments they can be. Easy-to-implement best practices are presented for establishing a classroom management plan, organizing procedures and materials, building a respectful community, fostering peer collaboration, and…

In 2005, the undergraduate advisory committee at the University of Toronto Mississauga found that across all disciplines, writing proficiency was the skill weakness that generated the greatest concern. Students reported that they often found writing tasks intimidating, and suggested that effective feedback and guidance would improve their writing.…

This study assessed rates of learning disabilities (LD) by several psychometric definitions in children with epilepsy and identified risk factors. Participants (N = 173, ages 8-15 years) completed IQ screening, academic achievement testing, and structured interviews. Children with significant head injury, chronic physical conditions, or mental…

This study focuses on student development with Calibrated Peer Review (CPR)[TM], a web-based tool created to promote writing and critical thinking skills. Research questions focus on whether or not students showed improvement in writing and reviewing competency with repeated use of CPR in a senior-level biology course and whether the difference…

This study examines the effects of learners' production (i.e., pushed output) during a multi-stage reconstruction task on learners' noticing of Spanish past tense morphology, aural text comprehension, and development of preterite/imperfect usage in writing. Participants included 47 intermediate L2 Spanish learners in a content-based course at the…

Space Week focuses on concepts that enable students to make concrete observations in the early grades (K-2) and move to concepts that help students develop their internet research and writing skills in middle and upper grades (Grades 3-5), and culminates with the development of science investigation design skills (Grade 6). To help launch your…

It was the perfect Halloween project. Each class would construct a three-dimensional "monster" out of common classroom materials (construction paper, cardboard boxes, tape, markers, glue, string, etc.), then write down instructions for building the monster and send them off to another class in the district, or in some other district, or even some…

The ability to construct supported arguments in English is important for academic success in educational contexts where English is the language of instruction and student assessment is mediated through the academic essay. Starting from the hypothesis that students schooled in an English-medium education system do engage in friendly argument in…

This article describes a project which identified the skills and abilities in written literacy of pre-service teachers, as well as their needs in this area. An intervention to address their needs is evaluated and its outcomes assessed, using a combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses. Results show that it is possible to improve these…

This article describes an unconventional method to teach un-contracted braille reading and writing skills to students who are blind and have additional disabilities. It includes a keyboarding curriculum that focuses on the whole language approach to literacy. A special feature is the keyboard that is adapted with braille symbols. Un-contracted…

During the past two decades, colleges and universities have used best practices from corporate management such as total quality management, strategic planning, management by objectives, benchmarking, data warehousing, and performance indicators. Many institutions of higher learning now have adopted comprehensive and multifaceted approaches to…

This study of 118 students who placed into basic skills sections of College English suggests that students' self-beliefs may be a particularly important predictor of success in weak writers in first-semester courses. Two types of writing self-efficacy scales--a writing tasks/skills scale and an approach-to-writing scale--were developed to follow…

Intended as a series of hands-on, step-by-step lessons, this book presents instructions, checklists, exercises, and examples to guide people who work in business, industry, science or government through all phases of manual preparation from planning to research to writing, all the way to getting the final piece printed. The first chapter shows how…

This comprehensive and innovative style manual has been designed to be clear and jargon-free, to serve as an alternative to the often confusing style manuals of years gone by. The manual is intended for use by students, professionals, and writers at any level. The manual, created by an expert in linguistics and lexicography, provides: (1) an A to…

Addressed to students with some, little, or no training in writing with sources, this booklet is an introduction to the conventions of writing with sources at the college level. Sections of the booklet are: (1) "Integrating Sources into a Paper"; (2) "Citing Sources"; (3) "Misuse of Sources" (including plagiarism,…