The California State University (CSU) requires entering freshmen to be proficient in English reading and writing, as demonstrated on proficiency measures. Currently, approximately 46 percent of incoming college freshmen need remediation in English reading and writing. To assist these students, CSU instituted an Early Assessment Program (EAP),…

Although word problems pose greater language demands, they also encourage more meaningful problem solving and mathematics understanding. With proper instructional support, a student-centered, investigative approach to contextualized problem solving benefits all students. This article presents a lesson built on an author-adapted version of the…

The present study examines the effect of participation of first-year university students in a full-year peer mentoring program as well as individual differences in motivation in relation to outcome measures of retention and achievement. A sample of 983 first year students completed the Academic Motivation Inventory (Tremblay, 1998) and agreed to…

In the context of the international problem of "early school leaving", this paper explores the issue of sustained participation in upper secondary education in England. It focuses in particular on the position of middle attainers, who constitute a large proportion of the cohort and whose progress will be vital in realising the…

This article reports results of a corpus-based evaluation of 14 syntactic complexity measures as objective indices of college-level English as a second language (ESL) writers' language development. I analyzed large-scale ESL writing data from the Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners (Wen, Wang, & Liang, 2005) using a computational system…

Patterns that emerged from reviewing 11 syllabi for courses on the community college are discussed, and three sample syllabi are presented. These courses are offered as part of graduate level studies in the field of higher education administration. The most commonly used course titles were "The Two-Year College" and "The Community Junior College."…

Describes a freshman composition class in which students write essays about pollution. Explains that students classified and divided problems, cited examples, explored pollution's processes, used narrative, and offered comparisons. Describes how students prepared cause-and-effect oral presentations and then wrote persuasive letters. Concludes that…

Offers teaching tips on thematic writing assignments, student resubmission of papers, sharing memorable sentences from students' writings, and nontraditional grading policies in writing classes. (RDS)

The number of English language learners has grown significantly across the United States and this is reflected in Missouri's public school system. English language learners lack the academic achievement as compared to their peers. General education teachers are responsible for children of diverse backgrounds; children enter school with limited or…

Pre/post concept assessment testing is becoming increasingly common in college courses. Instructors use different approaches to give assessments, but few studies have examined how administration differences affect results. Here, we ask if administering a posttest on the final exam differs from administering it on the last day of class with extra…

Seven experiments using self-paced reading and eyetracking suggest that omitting the middle verb in a double centre embedding leads to easier processing in English but leads to greater difficulty in German. One commonly accepted explanation for the English pattern--based on data from offline acceptability ratings and due to Gibson and Thomas…

Examines the marginal benefits and possible harm of teaching intensive traditional grammar to writing students. (HTH)

This paper, which focuses on community college faculty productivity, is part of a series published by the Center for Community College Policy, designed to support state and local policymakers, as well as educational leaders who are interested in policy issues related to the two-year postsecondary sector. The day-to-day interaction of faculty and…

Recounts how a videotape production of "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby," along with study guides, lectures, and discussions, can be used with students enrolled in literature, theatre, or television courses at any level from high school through graduate school. (EL)

Presents a brief history of readability formulas (discussing their capabilities and liabilities) and synthesizes current readability research for teachers who want to use readability principles in their work and who want to teach these principles to their students. Contains a table of the most commonly used formulas that lists their variables,…