Teacher Evaluation in an Era of Educational Change

Teachers can help minority children close the academic achievement gap in intermediate and middle school by combining literacy instruction and content-area material. This connection improves reading achievement and increases curriculum knowledge, even if students have previously experienced difficulty with primary school reading. Fortunately, upper-elementary and middle-level learners are still naturally curious, are developing cognitively, and have acquired some basic reading skills. Teachers can therefore extend students' previous learning by using a spiral curriculum, in which curricular concepts are introduced at an appropriate level and then revisited at more challenging levels. Teachers can also increase the academic complexity for students by using strategies that include picture books, word recognition skills, intensive subject matter, vocabulary in a meaningful context, Readers Theater, and after-school activities.     

The golden age of BTEC: the business education curriculum in 1980s further education

This article provides an account of ‘three generations’ of the Business Education Council (BEC)/Business and Technician (later Technology) Education Council (BTEC) curriculum as implemented in further education colleges between 1979 and 1992. There is discussion of aspects of the underlying philosophy of BEC/BTEC, the structure and content of the programmes, skills, assessment, work experience, learning strategies, and aspects of monitoring and quality control. It is argued that BEC/BTEC, through a form of vocational progressivism, successfully transformed pedagogic practices in FE during the 1980s. The advent of the National Council for Vocational Qualifications, however, and the subsequent introduction of General Advanced Vocational Qualifications in 1993 effectively marked the end of the ‘BEC/BTEC’ era and the establishment of a more directly instrumentalist approach to vocational education.     

Gender and IT in the Household: Evolving Patterns of Internet Use in the United States

Information technology (IT)—computers and related technologies—is the latest technology to enter the household. Like other technologies, gender is a major factor in its adoption and use as well as its perceived usefulness. Unlike prior household technologies, the computer's entry into the household has followed a different pattern. Early statistics revealed a vast gender divide, with men using computers and related technologies much more in the household. More recent statistics show a narrowing of the divide, perhaps even a reversal, particularly in the United States, with women outnumbering men in the access to and use of the Internet. In this article, the role of gender and its relationship with Internet use in the home are reviewed. In addition to overall adoption and access, the review focuses on specific Internet applications and examines the factors that contribute to gender differences in adoption and use of computers and Internet applications in the home.     

Business perceptions and satisfaction with e-government: Findings from a Canadian survey

This paper examines business perceptions and satisfaction with e-government. Survey data is analyzed from businesses across Canada to determine their use of e-government and their perceived satisfaction with this technology for public service delivery. There are three research questions of this paper: 1) Are there significant differences for businesses that use the internet to contact government compared to those that do not? 2) Is there is a relationship between having a more positive perception overall by business of government and e-government satisfaction? and 3) Is there a relationship between businesses having input into regulatory changes, essentially being inclusive of business in the regulatory process, and e-government satisfaction? The results from the statistical models indicated that all three questions were confirmed. The findings of this study imply that governments should try to understand the business environment. A more positive attitude by business towards government, and being more inclusive of business in regulatory changes, leads to greater e-government satisfaction.     

Print Media

Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979---$49.50 for the two volume set)

Roy Harley Lewis' Antiquarian Books: An Inisder's Account (New York: Arco, 1979---$10.00)

Jack Lindsay's William Morris: His Life and Work (New York: Taplinger, 1979---$14.95)

Thomas Weyr's Reaching for Paradise: The Playboy Vision of America (New York: Times Books, 1979---$12.50)

Book Publishing Worldwide, A Publisher's Weekly Extra (New York: R.R. Bowker, 1979---S6.95, paper)

Scholarly Communication: The Report of the National Enquiry (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979---$3.95, paper)

Charles B. Osburn's Academic Research and Library Resources: Changing Patterns in America (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979---$18.95)

Robert Egan's The Bookstore Book: A Guide to Manhattan Booksellers (New York: Avon Books, 1979---$5.95, paper)     

Are Letter Detection and Proofreading Tasks Equivalent?

When readers search for misspellings in a proofreading task or for a letter in a letter detection task, they are more likely to omit function words than content words. However, with misspelled words, previous findings for the letter detection task were mixed. In two experiments, the authors tested the functional equivalence of both tasks. Results reveal similar patterns of omissions for both search tasks when misspellings were produced by substituting one letter for another: There were more omissions for function words than for content words. However, when two letters were transposed, differences between the two tasks emerged. It is possible to conclude that letter detection and proofreading are based on common cognitive processes but the nature of the target can modulate the effects. Results are interpreted in light of the attentional disengagement model and the guidance organization model of the missing-letter effect.     

Predictors of psychological distress and positive resources among Palestinian adolescents: trauma, child, and mothering characteristics

OBJECTIVE: The aim was to examine how traumatic and stressful events, responses to violence, child characteristics, and mothering quality, as measured in middle childhood predict psychological distress and positive resources in adolescence. METHOD: The participants were 65 Palestinian adolescents (17+/-.85 years; 52% girls), who had been studied during the First Intifada (T1), during the Palestinian Authority rule (T2) and before the Second Al Aqsa Intifada (T3) in Gaza. Psychological distress was indicated by PTSD, and depressive symptoms and positive resources by resilient attitudes and satisfaction with quality of life, all measured at T3. The predictors that were measured at T1 were exposure to military violence, active coping with violence and children's intelligence, cognitive capacity, and neuroticism. Mothering quality and stressful life-events were measured at T2, the former reported by both the mother and the child, and the latter by the mother. RESULTS: Adolescents' PTSD symptoms were most likely if they had been exposed to high levels of traumatic and stressful experiences and had poor cognitive capacity and high neuroticism in middle childhood. Only high levels of childhood military violence and stressful life-events predicted high depressive symptoms and low satisfaction with quality of life in adolescence. CONCLUSIONS: Military violence in childhood forms risks for both increased psychological distress and decreased positive resources. However, child characteristics such as cognitive capacity and personality are important determinants of psychological vulnerability in military trauma.     

Books for the hospital emergency service

This is a list of books that should be available in either the hospital emergency room or the medical library. The forty-nine books listed are divided into the following categories: General, Surgery and Trauma, Burns, Cardiology, Dentistry, Disaster Medicine, First Aid, Geriatrics, Obstetrics, Pediatrics, Psychiatry, Toxicology, and Transportation. An asterisk has been placed before twelve books that are particularly recommended for the hospital emergency room as well as the medical library. The latest edition is given for each book, and, unless otherwise noted, each has been annotated by one of the authors.