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This article describes a course design that offers an innovative approach to using client-based projects (CBPs) in technical and professional writing. It shows how teachers can incorporate CBPs in hybrid or fully virtual instruction, adapt it for a quarter or semester, and tailor it to meet students' needs. While there are standard writing assignments, such as letters, memos, progress reports, and job application materials, other writing activities assigned depend on the CBP. These projects can involve creating operation manuals, employee handbooks, event planning guides, rewriting gaming instructions, summarizing scientific reports, producing website content, and/or compiling annotated bibliographies. First, CBPs foster students' different talents and abilities and provide different ways to improve communication skills, allowing students to pursue their writing interests across a range of disciplines. Secondly, this course has broad enough goals to support CBP integration. This course was designed around three such broad goals: (1) composing in professionally appropriate modes; (2) understanding professional obligations and ethical behaviors in diverse situations; and (3) working individually and collaboratively. Finally, the learning objectives for each goal are flexible, thus providing both instructor and student with an open framework for pursuing client-based work.

Since the U.S. military began fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2002, approximately two million military children have seen a parent deploy into harm's way at least once, and many families have experienced multiple deployments. Most deployments end with a parent's safe return home, but more than 50,000 service members have been physically injured in combat, and even more are later diagnosed with traumatic brain injury (TBI) or posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In the worst case, deployed parents do not return at all. This article examines the impact on dependent children of deployments that result in visible or physical injuries (for example, amputations or burns); invisible injuries, including TBI and PTSD; and a parent's death. Seven recommendations for service providers and policy makers are detailed. The article concludes that ultimately more research is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of existing programs and disseminate the findings so that resilience-based family programs can be expanded to providers in the community where families live and receive care.

In Cynthia Selfe's "Technology and Literacy: A Story about the Perils of Not Paying Attention," she advises that composition teachers "have to pay attention to technology." Similar to Brittany B. Cottrill's discussion of issues of access, this reflective piece pays attention to another issue concerning technology, specifically focusing on computer-equipped classroom designs. Not only has the author questioned the various ways that she uses technology in the classroom, such as blogs, wikis, and social networking sites, but she has also reflected on the advantages and disadvantages of computer-equipped classroom settings. Drawing heavily on Valerie Balester's "The Evolving Computer Classroom for English Studies," where she focuses on the effects of design on student learning, the author has realized how her previous lesson plans oftentimes became difficult to manage in certain computer classroom environments. In this article, she shares what she has learned based on her observations and teaching experience by first describing two computer-equipped classroom settings: University B (UB), a four-year, mid-size, rural, public university located in the Midwest, and University N (UN), a four-year, small-size, rural, private university located in the east. The author discusses how both UB's and UN's classroom designs can affect teaching philosophies and ideologies. Finally, she concludes by reflecting on how teachers can overcome the physical technological environment when design negatively affects their pedagogical goals and student learning.

Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study raised the concern that the United States (US) mathematics teachers place less emphasis on topics and teach a variety of content strands (Goldsmith, Mark & Kantrov, 2000; Kerachsky, 2008). The overall pattern in the US mathematics classrooms today is that primary and upper elementary teachers cover numerous topics before students achieve mastery (Cogan & Schmidt, 1999; National Center for Education Statistics, 1997). To solve this problem, US teachers need to find ways to focus fewer curriculum and study topics with a more in-depth agenda. Curriculum Focal Points for pre-kindergarten through grade 8 mathematics: a quest for coherence (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 2006) provides a strong framework that may assist teachers in creating a more coherent and focused mathematics program for students. In this article, the authors discuss example lessons that were implemented and observed in pre-kindergarten, fourth grade and sixth grade classrooms during a year-long professional development program. The overarching goal of this program was to provide appropriate instruction for teachers to organize mathematics standards-based curriculum in geometry, algebra and measurement, using a curriculum that emphasizes a strong conceptual framework. As an outcome of this exploratory research agenda, the authors' intentions were to circulate "best practices" and encourage international connections and discussion when using Curriculum Focal Points (CFP) in global classrooms.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe how organizational members became storywriters of an important process of organizational change. Writing became a practice designed to create a space, a time and a methodology with which to author the process of change and create a learning context. The written stories produced both the subjectivity of practical authors and reflexively created the con/text for their reproduction. Design/methodology/approach: A storywriting workshop inspired by a processual and participatory practice-based approach to learning and knowing was held in a research organization undergoing privatization. For six months, 31 organizational members, divided into two groups, participated in writing one story per week for six weeks. The written story had to refer to a fact that had occurred in the previous week, thus prompting reflection on the ongoing organizational life and giving a situated meaning to the change process. Findings: Storywriting is first and foremost a social practice of wayfinding, that is of knowing as one goes. Writing proved to be an effective practice that involved the authors, their narratives and the audiences in a shared experience where all these practice elements became connected and through their connection acquired agency. Originality/value: Narrative knowledge has been studied mainly in storytelling, while storywriting by organizational members has received less attention. This paper explores storywriting both as a situated, relational and material practice and as the process that produces narratives which can be considered for their content and their style.

Background: Self-directed multimedia resources that provide psycho-educational information to selected populations have been supported in child health related areas including parenting skills in adults and literacy in children. Comparable programs for use with bereaved children and families have not been adequately developed or empirically examined. Examining usability and satisfaction with such materials is critical, especially when dealing with bereavement. Objective: This study evaluated the feasibility of the multimedia kit "Talk, Listen, Connect III: 'When Families Grieve™'" ("TLC III") for use with caregivers and their parentally bereaved children (ages 2-16 years). Primary outcomes included the utilization and overall satisfaction with the "TLC III" kit and the kit's impact on caregiver-child communication. Secondary outcomes, engagement, family coping, and caregiver and child grief also were examined. Participants: Ninety-three caregivers completed pre- and post-viewing questionnaires (59 in the "TLC III" group, 34 in the comparison group). Results: Caregivers who viewed the "TLC III" kit materials reported greater satisfaction with kit materials and greater impact on family coping with death than did caregivers who viewed the "Ready" kit. No significant differences were found with regard to pre- to post-test changes on any of the primary or secondary outcome measures after controlling for pretest scores. Conclusions: Multimedia programs should be considered as adjuncts or alternatives to traditional therapies and further evaluated for use with parental bereavement; particularly among inaccessible segments of the population. Future studies should consider innovative approaches to examining the effects of such programs on complex problems faced by children.

The purpose of this qualitative study was: (a) to explore the cognitive and metacognitive processes of mathematics problem-solving discourse of 10-year-old students in Russia, Spain, Hungary, and the United States; and (b) to explore the patterns of social interactions during small group work. Data were analyzed using a cognitive/metacognitive framework adopted from Artzt and Armour-Thomas. The analysis of think-aloud transcripts, students' reflective journals, and field observation notes revealed similar patterns of cognitive/metacognitive processes of the problem-solving discourse at the four research sites and distinct patterns of social interactions. Implications of how children used metacognition to impact learning during mathematics problem solving are discussed.

Many times teachers hear students say: "Why are we learning this? Why do we have to know this? When are we going to use this outside of class time?" These common questions are probably familiar to most high school teachers. An 11th-grade English teacher attended a university-school district professional development (PD) program on interdisciplinary mathematics to gain insight on how to answer these students' questions and develop a new perspective on implementing "interdisciplinary"--also called "integrative"--curriculum. When applying PD program concepts, the English teacher integrated solid and plane geometry in an interdisciplinary manner during a study of "The Scarlet Letter" (2004) by Nathaniel Hawthorne in his self-contained 11th-grade class. This analysis of his strategy provides supporting research, summarizes an interdisciplinary approach for classroom use, integrates an assessment strategy, and generalizes the approach for multiple interdisciplinary projects. (Contains 2 tables and 2 figures.)

A Professional Development School (PDS) serves as a quality-teaching model. It is a vehicle that generates professional understanding through conversations among university professors, teachers, and teacher candidates. The author illustrates a pilot PDS program that exemplifies the many benefits of transforming the teaching model into a successful collaboration and the lessons learned by PDS participants. The partnership explores classroom culture, collaboration agendas, and quality efforts for building a conceptual framework for mathematics and science teaching and learning with fifth graders. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)

For thousands of years military children have been faced with many challenges that result from the combat deployment of their parents. These challenges are likely to be particularly burdensome to infants, toddlers, and preschoolers because of their emotional and cognitive immaturity, their reliance on magical thinking, and their dependence upon their parents for healthy development. This article outlines the challenges that modern young military children face, focusing on parental combat deployment, parental combat injury, parental postcombat health consequences, and parental death. Readers are reminded of the unique needs of young military children and the culturally informed services that are necessary for them to overcome these challenges.

The Ashtabula County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities in Ohio has developed an alternative to arbitration. The local conciliation committee, composed of representatives of both management and labor, plus a nonvoting, objective adviser, is a third level in the grievance procedure. Benefits include resolution of conflicts and savings in time and money. (MLF)

The Ashtabula County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities in Ohio has developed 27 new procedures for infection control that follow a comprehensive study of infection control and disease transmission. Many of these procedures are applicable to schools. (MLF)