The quality of a two-year college's physics program is determined in part by the quality of preparation and the overall workload of its teachers, along with the provision for adequate budgets, facilities, and support services. The guidelines presented in this booklet were prepared by a task force of the American Association of Physics Teachers…

This paper reports on ongoing research investigating the role of literacy in the secondary schools of England. A National Literacy Strategy was introduced in England in 1997, its principal initial focus being primary schools. It was always clear, however, that the strategy would influence secondary schools and later it became apparent that the…

Reviews the British Ordinary National Diploma (OND) course in technology, a two-year fulltime program leading to degree and subdegree courses in technology and science. The course was designed as an alternative to a two-year sixth form A-level course in mathematics and physics. (MLH)

During the 1997-98 academic year, members of the Germanna Community College (Virginia) English faculty observed that students were having difficulty with reading comprehension in the content areas. Faculty conducted an informal survey of Virginia Community College System colleagues, and learned that the placement test cutoff scores used at…

This dissertation is based on a case study of 8 beginning English teachers who participated in a collaborative inquiry group at an urban, comprehensive, high school in the San Francisco Bay Area. Qualitative data (including audio-transcribed meeting data, individual interview data, and classroom observations) were collected over two school years,…

A summer English camp language immersion program, which began in 2003, provided instruction by native English speakers to Thai college students via collaboration between Prince of Songkla University in Thailand and Ball State University in Indiana, USA. During this program, Thai students were exposed to English formally through classroom…

Community colleges are publicly supported institutions offering comprehensive programs of career-related, remedial, and freshman and sophomore studies, along with community services. Technical institutes, on the other hand, primarily offer preparation for technological occupations, while junior colleges focus primarily on freshman and sophomore…

Undergraduate research paper has long been a tradition in US freshman composition programs, although whether the research paper should or can be taught in the English department continues to be debated. In many of the English departments in Taiwan, students are also required to compose a research paper for their composition class. However, there…

Discusses teacher evaluation by students and provides a sample questionnaire for evaluating junior college English teachers. (RB)

A study found African-American students at a predominantly white university who participated in a freshman peer mentor program were likely to raise concerns with peers as they would not in programs promoting help-seeking. Participants reported promising rates of problem resolution following mentor interventions, had higher two-year retention rates…

This paper aims to analyze the relationships between English writing and domain-specific motivation and self-efficacy of Chinese EFL learners. 66 English major students from two grades were invited as participants to complete a writing task and two self-designed questionnaires on English writing motivation and self-efficacy, respectively. It was…

This article describes how the author, a devoted blogger, confronts his fear that his virtual life is damaging his career prospects in academe. As a new Ph.D. in religious studies, the author has every reason to believe he will find a tenure-track job. He has read the numbers and know that, on average, job candidates spend two to five years in…

Describes a national study of the current availability and use of commercially and institutionally developed educational assessment instruments. Indicates that two-year institutions reported less activity than four-year institutions in assessing the major fields of study but that 77% of all two-year institutions assessed basic skills. (MAB)

Recent college graduates are entering a competitive workforce that demands strong communication, teamwork, and problem-solving skills. However, many recent surveys and reports describe college graduates as deficient in these skills. For two courses at separate institutions, we each framed a course as a job, playing the role of a supervisor or…

Language learners with high working memory capacity have an advantage, all other factors being equal, during the second language acquisition (SLA) process; therefore, identifying a pedagogical intervention that can compensate for low working memory capacity would be advantageous to language learners and instructors. Extensive research on the…