Developing a Computer-Assisted Tutoring Program to Help Children at Risk Learn to Read

This paper describes the development and formative evaluation of a computer-assisted tutoring program to help students who experience problems learning to read. Based on a combination of social constructivist and behavioral theories, this program addresses the cost and quality issues associated with delivering high quality, cost-effective tutoring. Initial feedback on the beta version of the program provides support for developing a program designed with “just in time” support for tutors and interactive activities for tutees based on material that students are struggling with in their reading class.     

Bookstores-San Francisco

William Fadiman's Hollywood Now (New York: Liveright, 1972 -- $6.95)

V. F. Perkins' Film as Film: Understanding and Judging Movies (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1972 -- $2.25, paper)

Richard Corliss (ed.) The Hollywood Screenwriters (New York: Avon Discus Books, 1972 -- $1.95, paper)

Eugene Vale's The Technique of Screenplay Writing: An Analysis of the Dramatic Structure of Motion Pictures (New York: Grosset &; Dunlap, 1972 -- $5.95)

Alex Strasser's The Work of the Science Film Maker (New York: Hastings House, 1972 -- $17.50)

Dialogue on Film

Journal of the University Film Association     

Radio's Clutter Conundrum: Better Memory for Ads,Worse Attitudes Toward Stations

An experiment examined effects of increasing the number of advertising pods in radio. With the number of commercials kept constant, participants heard ads in 1 or 3 pods. Those exposed to the cluttered condition (i.e., 3 pods) reported the ads as more excessive and the commercial breaks more disruptive than those exposed to 1 pod. Clutter participants self-reported greater irritation than those hearing only 1 pod. This was supported by more frequent skin conductance responses in the clutter condition. However, other physiological measures suggested more cognitive resources were applied during the cluttered condition. Free recall and recognition were greater in the cluttered condition, although the latter not significantly so. Results are discussed in terms of the trade-offs management must make in deciding how to schedule advertising breaks in today's competitive radio marketplace.     

Evaluation of certain plans of financing education in South Carolina

Reforming the way a state distributes its funding to local school districts is a challenging task. Too often, state leaders embrace major school funding reform only when they are directed by court decisions. In this seemingly contentious policy domain, the Rhode Island General Assembly defied the odds—working in a recessionary climate and in the absence of judicial mandates—and enacted its first major school funding reform in almost 20 years on June 10, 2010. This article examines the Rhode Island school funding reform and how the state's leaders were able to overcome political and fiscal barriers following years of unsuccessful efforts to develop a new funding formula. The article also discusses the design of and the rationale behind the key features of the new formula addressing equity and accountability.     

Four Ages of Our Relationship with the Reality: An educationalist perspective

In this article, I try to make sense conventional notions of ‘premodernism’, ‘modernism’ and ‘postmodernism’ as ways of relating to reality, and apply them to education. I argue for the additional notion of ‘neo-premodernism’ to make sense of recent attempts to engineer social reality. Each of these four approaches coexists and constitutes the four ages: the age of prayer (premodernism), the age of reason (modernism), the age of social engineering (neo-premodernism) and the age of responsibility (postmodernism). I try to trace these ages in modern schooling and critically analyze their consequences and the power relations between teachers and students.     

How Television is Changing Our Children

The following vignette relates Becky Overholt's experience during a formal observation by her principal. At the time, Becky had a master's degree in curriculum, was a sixth-grade language arts teacher, and had 20 years of teaching experience.     

Content and method

Educational Sociology: A Subject Index of Doctoral Dissertations Completed at American Universities, 1941–1963. Francesco Cordasco and Leonard Covello, compilers. (New York: Scarcecrow Press, 1965. Pp. 226. $5.00.)

The Prospective Teacher's Knowledge of Library Fundamentals. Ralph Perkins. (New York: Scarcecrow Press, 1965. Pp. 202. $4.50.)

Adolescents and the Schools. James S. Coleman. (New York: Basic Books, 1965. Pp. 121. $4.50.)

The Emergent in Curriculum. Gail M. Inlow. (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1966. Pp. 353. $6.95.)

Studying History: How and Why. Robert V. Daniels. (New York: Prentice‐Hall, 1966. Pp. 105. $1.50. Paperback)

Physical Education: A Problem‐Solving Approach to Health and Fitness. Perry B. Johnson and others. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966. Pp. 486. $6.95.)

Teaching Contemporary Mathematics in the Elementary School. Charles F. Howard and Enoch Dumas. (New York: Harper and Row, 1966. Pp. 309. $7.50.)

Education in Metropolitan Areas. Robert J. Havighurst. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1966. Pp. 260. $3.50 Paperback)

The Adolescent Experience. Elizabeth Douvan and Joseph Adelson. (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1966. Pp. 471. $7.95.)     

PARTICIPATION AND CONTENT IN COMMUNITY AND TECHNICAL COLLEGE BOARD MEETINGS

This study examined meetings of North Carolina community and technical college boards of trustees, focusing on the participation and contributions to the content of those meetings by board members. The boards represented smallest to largest institutions, in the eastern, central and western regions of the State. They met morning, mid‐day, afternoon and evening on a monthly, bi‐monthly, and tri‐monthly schedule from August 1986 through February 1987. Attendance was high, with few late arrivals or early departures. All agendas, ranging from 6 to 18 items, were completed in 50 to 115 minutes, with limited comments or questions by trustees. Members initiated little during the meetings and provided little evidence of use of sources of information from other than their college personnel.

It is suggested that meeting at least monthly for at least 1 1/2 hours (mean for the study was 73 minutes) could encourage more initiating contributions by members. Boards should consider regular examination of the processes of their subcommittee and full board meetings to determine their effectiveness and member satisfaction with them. Orientation of new board members should stress the importance of members seeking relevant information to contribute or undergird their participation in board meetings.     

The Differential Impact of Curriculum on Aptitude Test Scores

A sample of 22, 923 students who had taken the SAT and the GRE General Test was classified by the four general undergraduate fields of study and by sex. The authors performed several analyses to determine the degree of differential impact that sex and field of study might have on GRE-Verbal, GRE-Quantitative, and GRE-Analytical scores after controlling on SAT-Verbal and SAT-Mathematical scores. They found, first, that the correlations of SAT-Verbal with GRE-Verbal scores and SAT-Mathematical with GRE-Quantitative scores were extremely high, .86 in the total sample and ranging from the low to middle .80s in the eight subgroups. The impact of curriculum and sex, after controlling on SAT scores, was found to be low on GRE- Verbal scores but relatively high on GRE-Quantitative scores, with students in heavily quantitative fields enjoying an advantage over their peers in less quantitative fields of study. The impact was moderate on GRE-Analytical scores. Further studies designed to "purify" the fields of study and include only clearly verbal fields and clearly mathematical fields showed small additional impact. An additional study indicated a generally slight effect of the institution attended on GRE-Quantitative scores after controlling for sex, major field of study, and initial ability.