This paper outlines the results of a pilot study conducted to determine the impact on grade outcomes and self-efficacy from the incorporation of preparation-homework (pre-hw) in a developmental mathematics classroom. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected. This study found that those students who reported doing pre-hw significantly…

A colleague can't make a coffee date at a time the author proposes because it would conflict with his office hour. No student has actually made an appointment with him during the hour, but he is committed to being in his office as promised in case someone drops by. The author's reaction to her colleague's faithfulness to his posted office hour…

His name is Brett Schmidt, and he is a college student with Autism. His greatest challenge of having autism is communication. When he first applied to Briarcliffe College, he was given an e-mail address to the Campus Portal. He had to train himself to look at the portal frequently for communication and information. On the start of the semester, he…

In this article, the author talks about sentence-level error, error in grammar, mechanics, punctuation, usage, and the teacher of basic writing. He states that communities are crawling with teachers and administrators and parents and state legislators and school board members who are engaged in sometimes rancorous debate over what to do about…

Recent findings of passageless comprehension by college readers have added to the fallout with standardized reading comprehension tests and have called for theoretically and psychometrically stronger options. Reviewing the research literature, this paper suggests the maze test as an option for college reading assessment. The existing evidence,…

This paper presents a follow-up to a previously published paper "The Connection between Role Model Relationships and Self-Direction in Developmental Students" and is based on findings from the same study. The study used observations and interviews to explore the ways in which a cohort of developmental writing students described their understanding…

Developmental immigrant students are a growing phenomenon in the United States, a growing population in higher education, and a growing presence in undergraduate classes, and like their mainstream developmental counterparts, many are academically underprepared for the rigors of college (Goldschmidt & Ousey, 2011), sometimes prolonging, or even…

Linguistic behavior often reveals cultural practices. In fact, sociolinguistics is dedicated to researching how language use intersects with cultural and social identity (e.g., Coupland. and Jaworski, 2009). One aspect of language use that sociolinguistics focuses on is naming practices. The study of such practices is called onomastics. While…

Discusses Arthur Chickering's Seven Vectors of College Student Development in relation to the author's own growth as a freshman college student and to that of the first-year students she worked with as a developmental educator. Explains that Chickering's theory encompasses the intellectual, physical, and social growth of the student. (Contains 40…

Examines the effects of course-based reading strategy training--student application of reading strategies to their own college readings--on developmental college learners' reading comprehension skills. Explains that this study gave one group of students learning strategies instruction and gave no such instructions to a control group. Reports…

Discusses a study conducted at California State University, Dominguez Hills to develop data regarding the reading skills of a sample of upper-division students. Reports that 52-57% of those students who participated in all phases of the study presented reading skills below the expected college level. Recommends that more attention be paid to…

How second language development is assessed has been a question among English as a Second Language (ESL) faculty, since it has previously focused primarily on oral, rather than writing, development. Oral interviews and writing were compared for errors and syntactic maturity to see if any differences could be determined over a two-year period.…

Offers a review of research conducted on reading comprehension, focusing on studies of the cognitive processes involved in the comprehension of the meaning of the microstructures and macrostructures of a text. (DMM)

Reports findings from interviews conducted with four inexperienced writing students and one experienced writer regarding their awareness of external and internal audiences guiding their writing. Most inexperienced writers perceived only external audiences (e.g., teacher-as-audience), although one inexperienced writer and the experienced writer…

Assesses the effectiveness of teaching metacognitive thinking strategies through modeling to college students. Compares the reading test performance of students who had the strategies modeled to them, of students who only had the strategies taught to them, and of control group students. Teaching the strategies without modeling was ineffective.…