Seeking information about preconceived notions of the educational needs of children who are gifted, we asked 285 undergraduates in prerequisite classes for teacher education to complete questionnaires. Topics addressed included the need for special services for children who are gifted, perceptions of forms of service delivery in elementary schools, and egalitarian versus elitist issues in gifted education. Preferences among our respondents fell in favor of services carried out in general...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Misconceptions, Educational Needs, Elementary School Students, Academically Gifted,...
The findings from recent Canadian research indicate that while agency managers and front-line workers agree that evaluation is important, they seldom evaluate their work with clients. With the current emphasis on evidence-based practice and outcome-focused intervention, it is important to be able to demonstrate the value of career services in a manner that service providers find meaningful and funders find useful. In this article a framework for evaluation is presented that permits linking the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Career Development, Delivery Systems, Formative Evaluation, Evaluation Methods,...
In the province of Quebec, there has been a movement towards creating community schools since the last education reform. School integrated services make a unique contribution to the creation of a community school, and some important challenges must be considered and overcome if the community school is to exist in Quebec as it currently exists in the rest of Canada and in the United States. This paper consists of a proposal for the use of a pull-in program, namely the consulting team model...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Integrated Services, Community Schools, Educational Change, Foreign Countries,...
Podcasting is becoming more and more common as a method of delivery at universities and for training purposes. The concept to set up podcasting is simple, and the costs vary. The advantages of podcasting are enormous. Podcasting is especially effective for adult education programs. (Contains 17 online resources.)
Topics: ERIC Archive, Adult Education, Educational Technology, Distance Education, Telecommunications,...
To provide an array of perspectives on the future direction of foster care, five experts across various disciplines and backgrounds were asked to respond to this question: "How can the child welfare system be improved to better support families and promote the healthy development of children in foster care?" This article presents their responses to the above question. Susan H. Badeau argues that a conversation about improving the system should begin with a discussion of guiding...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Child Welfare, Foster Care, Adoption, Family Relationship, Adolescents, Children,...
A growing number of children over age 10 reside in and emancipate from foster care every year. Older children face many of the same challenges as younger children, but they also have unique developmental needs. This article discusses older children in the child welfare system and finds: (1) Approximately 47% of children in foster care are over age 11, and in 2001, 20% of children leaving foster care were over age 16; (2) Older children need permanency, stability, and a "forever...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Daily Living Skills, Substance Abuse, Homeless People, Educational Attainment, Child...
Kin caregivers can provide continuity and connectedness for children who cannot remain with their parents. This is one reason kinship care has become the preferred placement option for foster children. However, despite the growing reliance on kin caregivers, kinship care policies have evolved with little coherent guidance. This article examines kinship care and finds: (1) Kinship foster parents tend to be older and have lower incomes, poorer health, and less education than non-kin foster...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Placement, Caregivers, Family Relationship, Foster Care, Family Environment, Child...
Over the past two decades, the foster care system experienced an unprecedented rise in the number of children in out-of-home care, significant changes in the policy framework guiding foster care practice, and ongoing organizational impediments that complicate efforts to serve the children in foster care. This article discusses the current status of the foster care system and finds: Agencies often have difficulty providing adequate, accessible, and appropriate services for the families in their...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foster Care, African Americans, Minority Groups, Child Welfare, Family Needs,...
This paper focuses on the challenges of helping children after abuse and neglect has occurred by strengthening the web of supports for children and families in foster care. It examines the current state of the foster care system and finds that it is really not a cohesive system but a combination of many overlapping and interacting agencies, all charged with providing services, financial support, or other assistance to children and their families. It offers policy and practice recommendations...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foster Care, Child Welfare, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Social Services, Delivery...
Each year, the United States Department of Education collects data on the number of children with disabilities and the number of service providers meeting their needs in the educational system. The purpose of this investigation was to reanalyze the U.S. Department of Education data to determine state and regional ratios of physical therapists and occupational therapists to children with disabilities frequently served by therapists. Results demonstrated large regional variability possibly due to...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Disabilities, Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Allied Health Personnel,...
A long-standing goal for many teacher preparation programs is to link theory to practice (i.e., "linkages") for teacher candidates through close university-school partnerships. Essentially, the professional development schools (PDS) models were established to bridge this gap of theory and practice and to provide an environment in which collaboration between university faculty and teachers can foster shared knowledge, professional growth, and progressive methods of instruction. A...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Practicums, Professional Development Schools, Theory Practice Relationship, College...
The goal of this comparative study was to explore the online interactions among members of two learning communities. The two cases examined two different cohorts in the same professional preparation program for school principals and administrators: a distance-learning cohort and an onsite university-district partnership cohort in which online activities supported face-to-face instructional delivery. Of interest here was how students wrestled together to interpret, understand, and support their...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Role, Computer Mediated Communication, Academic Achievement, Learning Activities,...
This study describes the characteristics, enrollment, and completion rates of students with disabilities and the support services they received over a three-year period. Between 1998 and 2001 a total of 604 students with disabilities enrolled in undergraduate courses at Athabasca University, which represents 1.5% of the student population. More than half (52%) had a physical disability, 20% had a learning disability, 20% had a psychological disability, 4% had some form of visual impairment, and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Distance Education, Student Characteristics, Enrollment Rate, Graduation Rate,...
The growth of distance education options at the postsecondary level has led to a need to reassess how student services are provided to distance learners. This study used qualitative thematic analysis to examine the experiences of student service directors in Canadian postsecondary institutions when providing counseling and advising services to distance students. Some of the key considerations and challenges for service planning that emerge from this study are the need for increased...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Distance Education, School Counseling, Student Personnel Services, Student Personnel...
Women with multiple roles face many challenges when taking distance education courses in professional programs to achieve credentials or maintain competence. Among these challenges is finding the supports necessary for success as a distance student. As part of a larger study on advantages and stressors identified by such women in distance education professional programs, supports from family, educational institutions (especially teaching staff), and employers emerged as important factors for...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Females, Distance Education, Womens Education, Womens Studies, Professional...
This qualitative, explanatory study examined Post-RN baccalaureate nursing students' experiences of empowerment with distance education and computer conferencing (CC) for fit with the constructs of Kanter's (1977, 1993) Theory of Structural Power in Organizations. Seven post-RNs from Canadian distance education nursing programs were interviewed. Interview transcripts were examined using content analysis. Kanter's theory was useful in describing empowerment structures in distance education...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Nursing Students, Nursing Education, Distance Education, Interviews, Participant...
In recent years, many distance educators and institutions have successfully adopted asynchronous text-based environments as the backbone of their online classrooms. Group email, electronic references, and course websites, coupled with online discussions, typically constitute the model of online course delivery. Although the structure and pacing of these asynchronous text-based environments provide both students and instructors with increased flexibility and convenience, the synchronicity--and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Distance Education, Online Courses, Virtual Classrooms, Classroom Environment,...
Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) is relatively common among 3-8 year-old children and its presence puts children at risk for more serious and stable behavior problems. Behavioral Parent Training (BPT) as the most empirical support as a treatment for children with ODD as well as for children with clinically significant conduct problems. The purpose of this paper is to review research on research on modifications to the BPT treatment model that have improved its efficacy as well as its use by...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Behavior Problems, Behavior Disorders, Early Childhood Education, Outcomes of...
The governments of China and South Korea have supported the development of distance education both legislatively and financially. The use of traditional media for this purpose has been successful in both countries, though the evolution to Internet-based education has been only partially successful. This report describes this process in terms of uncritical application of western distance education technology and methodology in environments that are unsuitable for them. Until these issues are...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Distance Education, Foreign Countries, Educational Technology, Technology Uses in...
In this paper, we propose a conceptual and operational framework for process reengineering (PR) in higher education (HE) institutions. Using a case study aimed at streamlining exam scheduling and distribution in a distance learning (DL) unit, we outline a sequential and non-linear four-step framework designed to reengineer processes. The first two steps of this framework--initiating and analyzing--are used to initiate, document, and flowchart the process targeted for reengineering, and the last...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Higher Education, Scheduling, Distance Education, Total Quality Management, Delivery...
The purpose of our paper is to describe and compare educational models based on four major concepts that can be used to assess educational quality. We focus on graduate management programs since they are increasingly supporting their education offerings with state-of-the-art technology. We examine why some distance educational models are more appropriate than others. We first discuss the literature surrounding distance education with a focus on two major concepts--"dialogue and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Administrator Education, Distance Education, Educational Quality, Delivery Systems,...
Members of the committee on disabilities of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry (GAP) contacted 107 of 126 American Medical Schools to determine the number of students requesting accommodation for a disability, the time at which the request was made, the type of disability, and the type of accommodation offered. The survey determined that 2.3% of medical students request accommodation for disabilities that are overwhelmingly cognitive in nature. Accommodations offered usually consist of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Medical Education, Medical Students, Medical Schools, Telephone Surveys, Psychiatry,...
This article reports the results from a national survey of experiences in postsecondary education of students with visual impairments in gaining access to textbooks. Participants were members of listserves sponsored by the student affiliates of the American Council of the Blind and the National Federation of the Blind. While the majority of students were successful in gaining access to their textbooks in formats they could use, a greater number reported delays in procuring textbooks. National...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Blindness, Textbooks, Library Services, Visual Impairments, Special Needs Students,...
This paper brings together the theory of the uncanny as it emerges in cultural theory, with an understanding of the uncanniness and troublesomeness seen to be inherent in certain understandings of teaching and learning in higher education. Drawing on research into students' experiences of learning in virtual worlds, it explores the sense in which teaching in such spaces materialises and extends the positive aspects of uncertainty, strangeness, disquietude and troublesomeness in online higher...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Higher Education, Virtual Classrooms, Student Experience, Online Courses, Performance...
Online discussions have been increasingly integrated into face-to-face classes at universities to enhance student learning of course content. The primary focus of past research has been on the end products of online discussions. Studies reported either successful findings or results that fell short of desired learning outcomes. An in-depth investigation is needed about how the design of online discussions is related to success. This paper reports our experiences in conducting a three-phase,...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Web Based Instruction, Course Content, Program Design, Delivery Systems, Asynchronous...
The Sioux Hudson Literacy Council in partnership with AlphaPlus Centre in Toronto, Ontario and Confederation College, Sioux Lookout Campus, is making groundbreaking strides to reach adult learners who reside in remote, isolated communities of Northwestern Ontario. Generous funding from the National Literacy Secretariat in collaboration with AlphaPlus Centre, a Toronto-based adult literacy resource center, has made it possible for the Sioux Hudson Literacy Council to deliver "Good Learning...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Pilot Projects, Adult Learning, Adult Students, Foreign Countries, Adult Literacy,...
SUCCESS@Seneca has teamed up with the General Arts and Science programs at Seneca's Newnham campus. The design of an integrated service delivery model addresses numerous student success and retention related activities by providing the essential connection between academics and college resources. The program focuses on the promotion and support of academic services, career development, personal needs, and the transition into college and beyond, working cooperatively to address the needs of the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Integrated Services, Science Programs, Career Development, Developmental Studies...
The South Australian Education Department introduced the School Entry Assessment (SEA) Policy in 2001 to help teachers assess young learners and plan relevant learning events, to help collect information about South Australian education from Pre-School to Year 3, and to facilitate collaboration within and between educational and social institutions. Implementation of the School Entry Assessment (SEA) Policy was supported in a limited number of schools by the School Entry Assessment Mentor...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Program Effectiveness, Foreign Countries, Comparative Analysis, Teacher Attitudes,...
This article is a critical reflection on a study of the views of Spanish teachers in South Australian schools about their professional development (PD) needs and experiences. Officials responsible for designing Spanish specific PD were interviewed. Sixteen teachers were randomly selected from private, public, country and metropolitan middle schools and were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire with an open-ended response format. Non-native and native Spanish speaking participants...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Professional Development, Spanish Speaking, Spanish, Foreign Countries, Middle School...
This mixed methods study explored the dynamics of interaction within a self-paced online learning environment. It used rich media and a mix of traditional and emerging asynchronous computer-mediated communication tools to determine what forms of interaction learners in a self-paced online course value most and what impact they perceive interaction to have on their overall learning experience. This study demonstrated that depending on the specific circumstance, not all forms of interaction may...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Computer Mediated Communication, Online Courses, Educational Technology, Learning...
The Distance Education Project for Rural Schools (DEPRS) was implemented by the Chinese government between 2003 and 2007 to improve the quality of basic education in rural areas of China, especially in the poorer western provinces. It has been referred to as "the largest ICT project in the world up to now" because "it serves a larger population than any other similar projects and therefore will likely start a far-reaching information revolution in China." This paper offers a...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Rural Education, Rural Schools, Rural Areas, Distance Education,...
The western Canadian province of Alberta has used some of the proceeds from exploitation of its extraordinary natural resources to make available a range of post-secondary training and education opportunities to residents. While these provisions appear comprehensive, this study examined how well they actually suit the express needs of the residents of remote, Northern areas of the province, many of them Aboriginal. The literature shows that while Aboriginal people are underrepresented in Canada...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Indigenous Populations, Distance Education, Job Training, Foreign Countries,...
This research study is a collaborative project between faculty in social foundations, special education, and instructional technology in which we analyze student data from six undergraduate and graduate courses related to the use of a virtual classroom space. Transactional distance theory (Moore & Kearsley, 1996) operates as our theoretical framework as we explore the role of a virtual classroom in distance education and analyze the ways in which a synchronous learning environment affects...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Distance Education, Online Courses, Personal Autonomy, Educational Technology,...
Many research studies on the effect of organizational factors on training transfer have been conducted, but few studies have considered the effect that different training delivery methods have on training transfer. This study sought to identify if there is any difference in the perceived transfer of training between traditional classroom instruction learners and computer-based instruction learners. Other demographic variables (e.g., years of work experience, age, level of education, years of...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Self Efficacy, Computer Assisted Instruction, Transfer of Training, Teaching Methods,...
There is increasing evidence that Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is an effective, and often superior, method to teach children with Autism Spectrum Disorders ASD), than other methods. The Douglass Developmental Disabilities Center of Rutgers University (DDDC) has been using ABA for more than thirty years to teach toddlers, young children, adolescents and adults with ASD. The DDDC is a multi-division center that blends research and clinical applications in ABA, and provides teaching and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Pervasive Developmental Disorders, Behavior Modification, Children, Adults, Delivery...
Based on recent research reports, the blended learning model, which combines face-to-face and online learning, is now the preferred model for online course design. Its superiority over online learning, which lacks face-to-face interaction, is evident from studies that examined both student achievement and satisfaction. Nevertheless, there is ambiguity in the literature and in the field regarding the proper implementation of blended learning and the optimal proportions between online and F2F...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Open Universities, Student Attitudes, Online Courses, Foreign Countries, Blended...
Research comparing student experiences with online-only and blended delivery has often concentrated on graduate students and nontraditional programs. However, the effectiveness of online and blended delivery depends on audience and subject matter, suggesting that findings based on data from graduate and nontraditional programs may not hold true for undergraduate students in traditional teacher education programs. This study attempts to address this need in the literature by examining the work...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Undergraduate Students, Teacher Education Programs, Online Courses, Blended Learning,...
Kimberly Howard and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn examine home visiting, an increasingly popular method for delivering services for families, as a strategy for preventing child abuse and neglect. They focus on early interventions because infants are at greater risk for child abuse and neglect than are older children. In their article, Howard and Brooks-Gunn take a close look at evaluations of nine home-visiting programs: the Nurse-Family Partnership, Hawaii Healthy Start, Healthy Families America, the...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Child Abuse, Parenting Styles, Home Visits, Child Rearing, Delivery Systems,...
Researchers have identified four common co-occurring parental risk factors--substance abuse, mental illness, domestic violence, and child conduct problems--that lead to child maltreatment. The extent to which maltreatment prevention programs must directly address these risk factors to improve responsiveness to parenting programs or can directly focus on improving parenting skills, says Richard Barth, remains uncertain. Barth begins by describing how each of the four parental issues is related...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Family Problems, Family Violence, Child Abuse, Prevention, Child Welfare, Parent...
The 25th Annual Report to Congress has been designed to showcase the data collected from states and the national studies that make up the Office of Special Education Programs' (OSEP) National Assessment of the Implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Act. To this end, OSEP proposed questions about the characteristics of children and students receiving services under Parts B and C, the settings in which they receive services, their transition from Part C to Part B and from school to...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Disabilities, Federal Legislation, Educational Legislation, State Programs, Profiles,...
This article describes one school's year-long effort to provide equitable access to the core curriculum to a very culturally, linguistically, and academically diverse student body while increasing teachers' needs for responsive professional development by piloting a dramatic change in the special education service delivery system with the support of professors from a local university. First, the authors briefly examine the literature on collaboration, co-teaching, and differentiated...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Delivery Systems, Core Curriculum, Democracy, Individualized Instruction, Special...
This study was designed to evaluate the use of asynchronous discussion in distance education in terms of student perceptions of its value for learning and for affective support. At the end of the third and sixth years of a distance delivered teacher education programme, students completed a survey to determine the extent to which the nature and characteristics of the online aspects of the programme contributed to learning and afforded affective support. Students perceived considerable value in...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Distance Education, Asynchronous Communication, Virtual Classrooms, Student...
This case study describes three main strategies used from March 2002 to November 2003 at the Open University and Distance Education Coordination (CUAED) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) to consolidate distance education at the University. The author explains how, in just 18 months, these three main strategies enabled the UNAM to emerge as model of distance education for other public and private institutions in Latin America. (Contains 5 figures.)
Topics: ERIC Archive, Open Universities, Distance Education, Foreign Countries, Educational Strategies,...
History shows that education cannot be its own vehicle. It has to depend on the hinterland formed by its users--students, teachers and parents. Critical evaluation throughout history, however, has shown that it is these very users who are least consulted in the structuring of education. In this article, the authors describe an experiential programme designed for educationalists that enhances their understanding of and ability to tackle thorny issues that arise in life skills teaching. Inspired...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Criticism, Daily Living Skills, Foreign Countries, Teaching Methods, Experiential...
This study compared costs and revenues of Illinois community colleges related specifically to online delivery systems in order, first, to determine cost-efficiency and second, to compare the results among online courses at selected community colleges in Illinois. The research question to be answered was: "To what extent are online courses delivered at community colleges in Illinois cost efficient?" The study found that online programs at 83% of the community colleges participating in...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Delivery Systems, Community Colleges, Online Courses, Costs, Cost Effectiveness,...
Two of the major challenges to international students' right of access to higher education are geographical/economic isolation and academic literacy in English (Carey, 1999; Hamel, 2007). The authors propose that adopting open course models in traditional universities, through blended or online delivery, can offer benefits to the institutions and to the open education movement itself, in particular with non-Anglophone students. This paper describes the model and an implementation with...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Undergraduate Students, Higher Education, Open Education, Online Courses, Foreign...
Interested in bringing the benefits of the arts as integral to quality education for all children, in 2004 the Ford Foundation launched the National Arts Education Initiative, a seven-year demonstration in nine communities across the United States. Building from arts education programs that serve "pockets" of children, Ford investments aim to leverage these arts programs to reach all children through increased public will, supportive policy systems, and community partnerships. The...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Delivery Systems, Art Education, Educational Quality, Demonstration Programs,...
This article describes a Response to Intervention (RTI) model of service delivery implemented within a rural elementary school for students in kindergarten through fifth grade experiencing significant emotional and behavioral difficulties. A multi-tiered model is presented that includes school wide interventions in Tier 1, as well as a six separate interventions applied within Tier 2 and Tier 3. These included applied behavioral analysis, social skills training, counseling, differentiated...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Intervention, Behavioral Science Research, Emotional Disturbances, Emotional...
This research aims to answer the question, "in what ways do mediated learning environments support or hinder learner autonomy?" Learner autonomy has been identified as one important factor in the success of mediated learning environments. The central aspect of learner autonomy is the control that the learner exercises over the various aspects of learning, beginning with the decision to learn or not to learn. But as Candy (1995) points out, there are several areas where learner-control...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Student Attitudes, Personal Autonomy, Educational Technology, Educational...
In 2008, the Helen Macpherson Smith (HMS) Trust commissioned Victoria University to conduct an evaluation of the Mentoring and Capacity Building Initiative's Regional Coordination Projects (RCPs). The RCPs are founded on a model of community education and collaboration that aims to enhance cross-sectoral and whole-of-community approaches to mentoring and community building. Their specific objectives are to: (1) coordinate effective regional delivery of new and existing mentoring programs and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Community Education, Youth, Mentors, Program Evaluation, Delivery...