This monograph examines the nature of active learning at the higher education level, the empirical research on its use, the common obstacles and barriers that give rise to faculty resistance, and how faculty and staff can implement active learning techniques. A preliminary section defines active learning and looks at the current climate…

An instructional plan to rescue at-risk students must be based on a curriculum intended to serve all students. The creation of a functional curriculum, the promotion of employability skills, and an emphasis on improving study skills are instructional patterns that seem to be effective in reducing the number of student dropouts. Two alternatives…

In six brief chapters, mixed-age grouping of young children in schools and child care centers is explored and advocated. Chapter 1 defines mixed-age grouping, examines limitations of single-age grouping, and points out positive characteristics of mixed-age classes. Chapter 2 discusses social development as seen in children's interactions in…

Formal educational environments often provide less support for learning than do the everyday environments available to young children. This paper considers the concept of idealized learning environments, defined as "Havens." Various components of Havens are discussed that may facilitate comprehension, especially in science instruction.…

This project, in the second year of a three-year funding cycle, serves approximately 100 Hispanic students of limited proficiency in both English and Spanish at two junior high schools. Both schools had high enrollments (over 50 percent) of Hispanic students and were located in economically depressed areas of New York City. Project goals include:…

Demand for accountability and effective programming by the Ohio Cooperative Extension Service (OCES) led to identification of the need for a set of skills and knowledge for extension faculty related to program development through evaluation. This paper describes the training of OCES field faculty in program evaluation skills to be used within a…

This volume contains over 60 ideas for use in implementing supervised occupational experience (SOE) programs. The ideas, which were submitted during a National SOE idea contest conducted in 1983, deal with the following aspects of SOE programs: program evaluation, program promotion, use of teacher and student aids, stimulation of individual…

Designed as a means of communicating creative ideas in community college education, this second edition of Colleague contains 11 articles on instructional and administrative issues facing the community colleges of the State University of New York. The collection includes: (1) "Professional Growth and Development: An In-House Effort," by Alvin J.…

This monograph presents descriptions of six extensively researched and widely used cooperative learning methods and discusses research on the effects of cooperative learning. The term "cooperative learning" refers to instructional methods in which students of all levels of performance work together in small groups toward a common goal.…

This report presents the Academic Retention and Talent Retrieval components of the Special Services Program at Northern Illinois University. The support structures are described in detail, including: CHANCE counseling, which assists students with academic and financial planning, personal growth, peer tutoring, and career counseling; and the Talent…

A problem solving course designed to expose the student to the wide range of alternative problem solving techniques and to enable the student to use these methods in practical applications was developed at the University of California at Los Angeles. The course also exposes the humanities student to objective tools such as numerical models, while…

The final report discusses Project SPICE (Special Partnership in Career Education) which produced a career awareness curriculum consisting of an implementation guide, and six teaching modules intended for use with educable mentally handicapped students (ages 11-to-13 years). Noted are the following program objectives (based on the National…

This collection of 11 articles focuses on integrating handicapped and nonhandicapped children in preschool programs. Article 1 presents arguments for preschool integration. Article 2 discusses research on peer interaction and mixed-age socialization. Article 3 advocates a behavior analysis and operant conditioning approach to studying and…

RECENT RESEARCH WOULD SEEM TO IMPLY THAT THE RESULT OF INTENSIVE TEACHER-CORRECTION OF STUDENT COMPOSITION DOES NOT JUSTIFY THE EFFORT. IF TEACHER-CORRECTION DOES NOT PRODUCE THE IMPROVEMENT OF STUDENT COMPOSITION, PERHAPS PEER-CORRECTION WOULD BE MORE EFFECTIVE. A REVIEW OF THE FEW PERTINENT STUDIES INDICATES THAT PEER-CORRECTION IS AT LEAST AS…

Reflective Teaching (RT) is an alternative to the present field-based and campus-based laboratory teaching experiences. This paper briefly describes the initial development and field testing phase of a study of the effectiveness of RT in a variety of instructional settings. Reflective Teaching has the following chief characteristics: (1) small…