Integration Factors Related to the Academic Success and Intent to Persist of College Students with Learning Disabilities

Despite increased enrollment, outcomes such as grade point average (GPA), persistence, and graduation rates for college students with learning disabilities (LD) continue to lag behind those of their nondisabled peers. Reasons for the differences vary but may include academic and social integration, factors identified as important to the success of college students in general. This research investigated the relative influence of background characteristics, precollege achievement, and college integration variables on the academic success and intent to persist of college freshmen and sophomores with LD. While academic and social integration were not unique predictors of college GPA, both integration variables were unique predictors of intent to persist. The findings suggest that beyond high school achievement and background characteristics, college experiences as captured by academic and social integration are promising constructs to help explain the persistence of college students with LD. Implications for future research and practices for high school and college personnel are discussed.     

Alternative technologies and social studies textbooks

In order to determine the potential of alternative technologies in social studies education, we must understand the goals of such education, the capabilities of the technologies, and teachers’ and students’ responses to new technologies. The author suggests that the new technologies can contribute to the goals of learning about the past, learning about democratic life and institutions, and making students knowledgeable as consumers and producers of information. One major obstacle is a lack of time and money for teachers to experiment with the technologies. Stephen T. Kerr is professor of education in the College of Education at the University of Washington. His research focuses on the application of new technologies in schools and other educational environments, and particularly on the ways in which technology affects the social structure (roles and expectations, instructional patterns, organization) of those institutions. He has done work on human-computer interaction, as well as on how new communication technologies have changed the educational system of the former USSR.     

Assessing School Readiness: Validity and Bias in Preschool and Kindergarten Teachers' Ratings

As a part of efforts to evaluate and monitor the increasing public investment in early childhood education, teachers are being asked to assess children's school readiness. In this study, preschool teachers and kindergarten teachers rated children's skills in three areas (kindergarten readiness, academic skills, and communication skills), and these ratings were compared with direct assessments of the children's skills. Ratings by both groups of teachers tended to be more highly related to basic skills, such as counting and number naming, than to abilities such as solving applied problems and using expressive and receptive vocabulary. Preschool teachers' ratings had a lower association with children's observed skills and abilities than kindergarten teachers' ratings. Ratings of children attending Head Start were systematically inflated, but this relationship was mediated to a significant extent by the teachers' levels of education. More educated teachers rated children in a manner consistent with the children's directly assessed skills. Implications of these findings for informing future efforts to assess school readiness by using teacher ratings are discussed.     

奥运冠军米斯蒂·海曼的训练特点

美国运动员米斯蒂·海曼在悉尼奥运会女子200m蝶泳比赛中击败了该项世界纪录保持者澳大利亚苏珊 ?奥尼尔,爆出了2000年一大新闻。米斯蒂的成功,首先在于确立训练目标:增强肌肉力量,改善身体组成成份。虽然,那时她的体魄已经非常健康、匀称了,体内只有16%的脂肪,但计划要她降到12%。教练员探索她发展肌肉的突破口,为她制订了符合饮食习惯的各组食谱。训练中,主要做带有力量性、平衡性、多关节的和全身的练习,如:下蹲,静力举重,大步行进中的扩胸等练习,以增大肺活量。教练员还为她设计了提高肩后部和上背部的力量、提高腰腹部的力量和改善四头…