In an effort to curb high first-year attrition rates and to motivate students from a state of passive learning to one of active participation, Bergen Community College implemented a program of peer teaching-learning and group inquiry strategies in a preclinical dental hygiene course. To determine freshman students' learning styles, the following…

Four studies by the Cognitive Strategy Instruction in Writing project at the Institute for Research on Teaching, Michigan State University, examined the acquisition of expository writing skills in fifth and sixth grade students. The first study examined the effects of teaching sixth grade students about comparison/contrast text structure. Results…

The annual bulletin of the Paired Reading Project contains 17 feature articles: (1) "Parental Involvement in Reading and Language" (F. Burton); (2) "Infant/Infant Cross-Age Peer Group Tuition" (A. Low and M.Davies); (3) "Comment on Low & Davies" (K. Topping); (4) "Paired Reading in Reaside Middle School"…

The mission of the Mid-continental Regional Education Laboratory (McREL) is to improve practice and increase academic performance in the schools of the seven-state mountain-plains region. McREL's principal approach to the dissemination and utilization of the effective schools research has been training teachers to use research. Based on the…

The seven brief chapters of this paper advocate mixed-age grouping in schools and child care centers. Discussion defines mixed-age grouping and examines some limitations of single-age grouping. Research findings on social and cognitive aspects of mixed-age grouping are reviewed. Social aspects are discussed by considering in turn the following…

A review of research on instructional methods at community colleges since 1970 is presented. Studies of individualized instruction, programmed instruction and computer application, media approaches, affective approaches, student-faculty interaction and learning outcomes, and peer tutoring are discussed. Positive impacts of the various methods are…

Results of an evaluation of the first year of operation of the Campus Alcohol Education Service at the University of North Carolina (UNC), Chapel Hill, are examined. The Student Alcohol Survey, which is primarily a program planning instrument and secondarily a source of information on program effects, was completed by 465 undergraduates. Responses…

Intended for educators who wish to work with small groups of students from larger classes, this catalog describes seven common instructional grouping arrangements, and four associated concerns, revealed by a 1979-1980 survey of teachers and programs in Nevada, Utah, and northern California. The instructional grouping arrangements include (1)…

This resource book is designed to provide administrators, teachers and other educational personnel with a compendium of information derived from research and current educational practices which will facilitate the implementation of effective organizational and instructional strategies. A brief description of the common characteristics of children…

An interdisciplinary course in problem solving, entitled "patterns of problem solving," and its unique peer program offered at the University of California, Los Angeles, are described. The emphasis in the subject matter and approach is to expose the student to the wide range of alternative problem solving techniques and to enable the…

A small residential center for boys with learning disabilities and/or emotional problems was the setting for an intensive six-week inservice program designed to provide the staff with a combination of tutorial and direct training. The training was subsequently integrated into a more formalized, comprehensive, and on-going program through a local…

In the spring of 1979 an experimental study was conducted to evaluate the possible effects of Reflective Teaching (RT) on preservice teachers at the Ohio State University. Reflective Teaching is a new instructional alternative for teacher education featuring peer teaching and evaluation. The hypothesis being tested stated that, as a result of…

A pilot project (to run from 1974 to 1979) to improve the delivery system of primary education in rural areas of the Philippines (Project Impact) and Indonesia (Proyek Pamong) is described in this progress report. Underway in seven villages, the experiment (aimed specifically at increasing schooling opportunities for young people in the Third…

This paper describes a series of experiments which indicate how different reinforcement systems affect cooperative, competitive, and individualized learning structures. Following a brief literature review of prior research, the experiments investigated (1) individual reinforcement for peer tutoring and (2) shared-group reinforcement for peer…

Community college sociologists are unnecessarily isolated from the profession. Their careers will be enriched and the quality of sociological education will be improved, if a network of them is created. Funds could be raised to provide intensive summer workshops that generate the expertise and colleagueship to establish a community of innovators.…