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A study investigated the influence of classroom experience on theoretical beliefs about reading as evidenced over a full year elementary classroom internship in a laboratory school setting. Five interns (three females who had just received their bachelors degrees and two males who held masters degrees and were engaged in other occupations prior to entering the program, enrolled in the Masters in Teacher Education program at Eastern Oregon State College during the 1993-94 school year, voluntarily participated in the study. Theoretical orientation was assessed four times during the intern year using the Theoretical Orientation to Reading Profile, which categorizes responses into a "phonics,""skills," or "whole language" orientation to reading. Results indicated that: (1) interns' beliefs began at the lower end of the "skills" orientation range in September, and were noticeably varied among individuals; (2) by December, mean scores moved more towards the middle of the skills orientation, and converged considerably among individuals, a trend most likely reflective of similar classroom experiences and orientations; (3) by March, mean scores rose only slightly and were still within the middle of the skills orientation, but variability among individuals increased, most likely reflective of the combination of "theory" and "practice"; and (4) by the end of the internship, mean scores remained virtually the same, still within the middle of the skills range, with variability among individuals decreasing somewhat. (Contains two tables and two figures of data.) (RS)

Students in grades four, five, and six who represented three classifications of ability were compared for their conceptualizations, attributions, and attitudes about school grading practices. Intellectually gifted, learning disabled, and normally achieving students were assessed. Significant differences were found among the three groups, particularly for ability to define grading systems and tendencies to perceive the causes for getting good grades as internal and controllable. Linear trends were found on these variables, with mean scores showing an increase from the learning disabled, to normally achieving, to the gifted group. Results were discussed in terms of pyschological theory and issues for educational practice. (Author/DWH)

Accessible design and technology could support the large and growing group of people with chronic illnesses. However, human computer interactions (HCI) has largely approached people with chronic illnesses through a lens of medical tracking or treatment rather than accessibility. We describe and demonstrate a framework for designing technology in ways that center the chronically ill experience. First, we identify guiding tenets: 1) treating chronically ill people not as patients but as people with access needs and expertise, 2) recognizing the way that variable ability shapes accessibility considerations, and 3) adopting a theoretical understanding of chronic illness that attends to the body. We then illustrate these tenets through autoethnographic case studies of two chronically ill authors using technology. Finally, we discuss implications for technology design, including designing for consequence-based accessibility, considering how to engage care communities, and how HCI research can engage chronically ill participants in research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A pilot study investigated whether a short training program increased the number of questions involving higher level thinking used by preservice teachers in teaching fiction. Subjects, 22 students enrolled in an elementary reading methods course in a state university in the Northwest, completed pre- and posttests and the training program during four 50-minute classroom sessions. Subjects were presented information concerning four types of question classification systems: the traditional question types often used in basal reading guides (literal, inferential, critical, and creative); a text-explicit, text-implicit and schema-based system; Bloom's taxonomy; and story grammar questions. For the pretests and posttests, subjects were asked to play the role of a teacher preparing for a lesson and to write five questions to be used during class discussion of a particular piece of children's literature. Three question categories--restricted thinking about text; related thinking about text; and extended thinking about text--were identified by analyzing 15 randomly chosen pretests. All questions were then placed into one of the three categories. Results indicated that: (1) the total number and percent of the restricted thinking about text questions dropped from 65 (35%) to 11 (8%); and (2) the total number of extended thinking about text questions stayed approximately the same, 75 (41%) and 77 (56%), thus increasing the posttest extended thinking total by about 15%. Findings suggest that short training programs can influence preservice teachers' questioning practices. (One table of data is included.) (RS)

Inservice teacher education offered by Southeastern Louisiana University teaches rural special educators self-monitoring techniques for their students. A critical shortage of special educators has led to the hiring of minimally trained teachers, who need more training particularly in the areas of discipline and behavior management. A review of the literature revealed that self-monitoring procedures increase on-task behavior for many students with mild disabilities. For problems extending beyond the limits of on-task behavior, self-evaluation procedures teach students to evaluate their own classroom behavior using the same rating scale as the teacher. These procedures were field tested with students enrolled in a self-contained resource class in a rural elementary school. The self-monitoring procedure was found to result in an increase in the amount of time students spent on-task, and the self-evaluation intervention was even more effective. After the field test, training materials were developed to provide teachers with strategies to teach students to self-monitor or self-evaluate during seatwork in the special education classroom. The training packet included an audiotape and teacher's manual which could be used independently. Student training involves defining the target behavior(s), providing a rationale, modeling the procedure, and providing practice. Teachers were encouraged to collect and graph data regarding student behavior. (KS)

Cognitive apprenticeships have three essential characteristics: (1) they make use of the learner's prior knowledge; (2) they allow that learned procedures for solving problems may be modified in new situations; and (3) they acknowledge that individuals generate their own solution paths, often through a collaborative process. Preservice elementary teachers in an introductory elementary reading methods course were studied to investigate the influence of a "real school" practicum experience on their theoretical orientations and content knowledge. One group of preservice teachers (N=24) completed a 6-week elementary school practicum during the first half of the semester, then took an elementary reading methods course. A second group (N=24) completed the elementary reading methods course first, with the 6-week practicum second. Data relative to theoretical orientations were collected with the DeFord Theoretical Orientation to Reading Profile, and data relative to content knowledge were collected with the Rude Knowledge Test of Reading for Elementary School Teachers. Results indicate that the practicum experience did not appreciably influence the student teachers' theoretical orientations to teaching reading. The paper concludes by offering three recommendations for the next phase of the study: (1) include more indepth inquiry into the nature of the practicum; (2) conduct more complete analysis of theoretical orientation and content measures for both groups; and (3) examine the degree to which each teacher's theoretical orientation agrees with that of the supervising teacher. (SM)

Three members of the Ohio State University Astronomy department developed an audiovisual program in Astronomy to provide a format for more active student participation than is possible in large lecture sessions. The program consists of 18 filmstrip/cassette modules and an integrated textbook which were utilized on an individual basis, allowing students to repeat material prior to instructor meetings. The formative evaluation design, pilot testing, and procedures are provided, as well as the results of a study comparing student reactions and achievement in experimental groups employing this program with those in traditional lecture sections of the course. (RAO)

In religiously diverse societies, social conservatives (religiously devout, or socially traditional) feel their beliefs threatened, even where others in their society (religiously secular, or socially liberal, or politically to the left) have no desire to threaten them, or to discriminate against them, or even to proselytize. Examples include devout English pilgrims in liberal 16th century Holland and devout Muslims in liberal 21st century Western Europe. We suggest that this is because diversity itself poses a threat to a conservative way of life. The consequences of societal diversity in religion and morality are, to date, a neglected domain of research. In this paper, we show that societal diversity in religiosity (the centrality of religion to one's life) undermines conventional morality (re abortion, divorce, euthanasia, suicide, prostitution), reduces prejudice (re race, immigrants, other religions), elicits broadminded views about homosexuals, reduces support for religious politicians, reduces charitable volunteer work, and increases tolerance of some crimes. These changes are net of a person's own religiosity, net of the average level of religiosity in the society, net of socioeconomic development, and net of numerous individual level controls. Data are from the pooled World Values Surveys/European Values Surveys, 1981-2008, with 90 countries, 200+ surveys, and 300,000+ individual respondents. Analysis is by multilevel methods (variance components models with random intercepts, estimated by GLS). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]