Search

This document contains eight papers on adult learning and literacy research and practice. "The Year 1999 in Review" (Dave Speights) presents an overview of adult learning and literacy research funding, policy, and activities in 1999. "Making Sense of Critical Pedagogy in Adult Literacy Education" (Sophie C. Degener) details a critical pedagogy framework for adult education programs. "Research in Writing: Implications for Adult Literacy Education" (Marilyn K. Gillespie) discusses the teaching of writing as an integral and essential part of adult literacy education. "Time to Reframe Politics and Practices in Correctional Education" (Stefan LoBuglio) reviews policy, practice, and research related to correctional education and offers recommendations for improving them. "Building Professional Development Systems in Adult Basic Education: Lessons from the Field" (Alisa Belzer, Cassandra Drennon, Cristine Smith) examines five professional development systems in five states and considers their implications for improving the professional development of adult educators. "Adult Learning and Literacy in Canada" (Linda Shohet) explores the past, present, and future of adult literacy education in Canada. "Organizational Development and Its Implications for Adult Basic Education Programs" (Marcia Drew Hohn) traces the evolution of organizational development and experience with total quality management. "Resources on Organizational Development" (Marcia Drew Hohn) presents an annotated bibliography of 29 resources for adult literacy educators. (Most papers contain references.) (MN) [Full text of individual chapters are available in ERIC, ED508712-ED508718, under auspices of the copublisher, Office of Educational Research and Improvement.]

The various scholars who contribute in the three broad sections in this volume orient their papers toward revealing the diverse forms and functions of race and education across cultures. They highlight the conditions in analyses of Britain, Australia, and the United States. The rationale behind the structure of the symposium provides a forum in which readers with different biases can discuss the issues or race relations by formulating new questions about social situations and human acts. In light of the variations involved in intergroup relations, one of the criteria in organizing the material is to focus on the possible relationships among differing racial, ethnic, and social groups in societies of the world today. In order to capture the diversity offered by the work of experts in this area, a framework in the form of brief opening passages at the beginning of each section is provided. A selected bibliography to these issues is appended to each introduction. The book neither pretends to deal with the science of race relations as a whole nor claims to settle the controversy which exists in the area of race and education. There are three biases: toward the academic approach of social psychology; towards empirical studies; and toward radical conceptualizations from these studies. The three major sections are as follows: intellect and achievement; attitudes, personality, and behavior; and curriculum studies. (Author/AM)

Chapter 4 of the book "Our Underachieving Colleges: A Candid Look at How Much Students Learn and Why They Should Be Learning More," by Derek Curtis Bok is presented. It notes the need for an effective communication in undergraduate education particularly in writing skills which is considered to be important for the improvement of undergraduates. It mentions that the implementation of English composition as part of the curriculum is managed by few U.S. colleges with less time and attention.

Chapter 12 of the book "Our Underachieving Colleges: A Candid Look at How Much Students Learn and Why They Should Be Learning More," by Derek Curtis Bok is presented. It mentions the improvement on the quality of teaching in undergraduate education in the U.S. for the provision of best instruction that students should receive. It states the weakness seen in college curricula which do not support the intended cognitive and intellectual skills for students.

Chapter 5 of the book "Our Underachieving Colleges: A Candid Look at How Much Students Learn and Why They Should Be Learning More," by Derek Curtis Bok is presented. It mentions that the principal aim of undergraduate education in every college curriculum in the U.S. is giving value to critical thinking. It states that several activities are provided to students to improve their critical thinking, which include homework assignments, seminars, and lectures dealing with difficult problems.

This chapter reflects upon a case study of a high school chemistry classroom in Northeast Kings Educational Center where in the computer is being used in a unique way to deliver and direct curriculum on acids and bases. An Integrated Interactive Technology (IIT) model has been piloted and studied with very promising results. The classroom research has been helpful in defining how to best incorporate computer technology in a meaningful and productive fashion while defining a new role for the teacher. This chemistry classroom is not only innovative in its use of technology, more importantly, it adopts a truly constructivist framework for learning. In doing so it responds to many of the challenges posed by the National Science Education Standards.

The article deals with the drug abuse prevention curricula in schools in the U.S. Notable among the prevention approaches are those that rely on provision of information concerning the adverse consequences of drug abuse, affective education, or alternatives to drug use. These approaches emphasize teaching social resistance skills, either alone or in combination with generic personal and social skills.

Chapter Two of the book "Kingdom of Children: Culture and Controversy in the Homeschooling Movement," by Mitchell L. Stevens is presented. It describes how home schoolers defy the critics while learning to settle their own uncertainties in the U.S. It offers reasons why parents choose home schooling for their children such as conventional classrooms that make learning a chore, inflexible or incoherent curricula and inhuman organizations failing to discipline with love.

An essay on incorporating ethics based on subjectivity and choice into the study of composition across the curriculum in the U.S. is presented. The author states that the English language reinforces the notion of subjectivity by offering various inflectional forms. She presents a classroom scenario that depicts a rhetorical-ethical situation, in which communication and ethics are joined and intertwined. She notes that the choice of students between cognition, ethics and linguistic freeplay is an ethical choice by itself.

A biography of English professor James Louis Kinneavy in the U.S. is presented. He was born in Denver, Colorado on June 26, 1920 and attended public school until the age of eight. He enrolled as a graduate student at Catholic University of America (CUA) in Washington D.C. in 1949 and he also taught English, French and sophomore literature at the university. He proposed a new junior-level course, which would require students to write about discipline-specific topics, to the English Department of the University of Texas in 1983.