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The Department of Defense is providing about $6.6 billion for training and educating military personnel during fiscal year 1974. The primary purpose is to prepare individuals in the services to perform their duties efficiently. In the era of the All-Volunteer Force, military education must also represent a source of coherent career development for each individual who chooses to enter a service branch. Moreover, the growth that a person achieves while in uniform must be recognized by civilian employment and education institutions. In this context, the Department of Defense has begun efforts to make education more accessible, continuous, and creditable in relation to civilian career development requirements. This involves new attempts to establish greater integration of the military and civilian components of the nation's education and guidance communities. The design, operation, and future direction of these new developments are discussed in terms of their implications for educational and occupational guidance. (Author)

Because the Department of Defense spends more than $7 billion annually on training and educational opportunities, new instructional technologies are constantly explored in an attempt to make education and training more cost effective. Technologies which have been tried include: (1) instructional systems based on behavioral objectives; (2) instructional systems augmented by computer and audiovisual technology; (3) learner centered instructional research; (4) instructional television; (5) cable television; (6) miniature computers/microprocessors; (7) holography; (8) rapid transmission and storage system; (9) satellite communication; (10) computer-assisted instruction; (11) computer-managed instruction; (12) simulations; and (13) wired garrison concept. By combining these technologies in proportions which most effectively meet the educational needs of the armed services, and by pooling available instructional resources and delivery systems to avoid redundancy, the military can enhance the quality of the personnel while reducing unit costs for education. This report briefly describes each of these technologies, and suggests applications in military training programs. (EMH)

To relate the design of open education programs to their outcomes, the authors surveyed 72 research studies on the effects of open education and examined the methods and findings of three previous literature surveys on this topic. The 72 studies were divided by an objective statistical test into those showing large effects of open education and those showing small effects. The researchers then compared seven features and four aspects of open education with six student outcome variables, controlling for nine characteristics of the research studies' design and methodology. Among the open education features were multigrade student groupings, open space, individualized instruction, and team teaching; open education aspects included the number and extensiveness of open education features in each study. Outcome variables comprised students' self-concept, creativity, attitude toward school, and reading, math, and language achievement. The results showed that the size of open education effects varied for different features and outcomes. For instance, for student self-concept, open education programs showing large effects averaged two more features than those showing small effects, while for student creativity, programs with larger effects had one more feature. (RW)

In studies of young children in ghetto schools, those who most often ranked low in cooperative behavior were those with the most verbal and personal spontaneity. Unfortunately, these children with considerable self-confidence, eagerness, and curiosity become either disruptive and difficult or quiet, unresponsive, and nonlearning. The major educational problem for these children, whose environment has deprived them of models for connecting language with action, experience, and feelings, is that the school, teacher, and curriculum also do not provide them with opportunities for using their language and for intellectual growth. To encourage children's language involvement and expansion in school, teachers should listen to what children are trying to say, encourage their listening to others, extend children's thinking experiences through storytelling and book reading, foster group interaction, introduce learning tasks involving thinking, and reinforce their language use with compliments. (JM)

This research evaluates the impact of switching college engineering courses from in-person instruction to emergency remote learning among engineering students at a university in the Midwest. The study aimed to answer the question: What were the concerns and perceived challenges students faced when traditional in-person engineering courses suddenly transitioned to remote learning? The goal of this study is to uncover the challenges students were facing in engineering online courses and to understand students' concerns. Our findings can help improve teaching instruction to provide students with previously unavailable educational assistance for online engineering courses. We collected online survey responses during weeks 8 and 9 of the academic semester, shortly after the COVID-19 shutdown and emergency transition to remote learning in Spring 2020. The survey included two open-ended questions which inquired about students' feedback about moving the class online, and one two-item scale which assessed students' confidence in online engineering learning. Data analysis for the open-ended questions was guided by the theoretical framework - Social Cognitive Career Theory [1] that explores how context, person factors and social cognitions contribute to career goals, interests and actions. A phenomenological approach [2] was conducted to understand the experience of these students. Open coding and axial coding [2] methods were used to create initial categories then themes related to students' concerns and challenges. Data from the two-item scale was evaluated using descriptive statistics: means, standard deviations, and ranges. Four main themes with separate sub-categories emerged from the student responses: 1) Instructor's ability to teach course online (Instructional limitations, Seeking help, Increased Workload), 2) Student's ability to learn online (Time Management, Lower engagement and motivation, Harder to absorb material, Hard to focus, Worry about performance), 3) Difficulties outside of class (Technology issues), and 4) No concerns. Students seemed more concerned about their ability to learn the material (48% of responses) than the instructor's ability to teach the material (36% of responses). The instructional limitations or lack of instructional support (22% of responses) and time management (12% of responses) were among the major concerns in the sub-categories. The results from two-item scale indicated participants' s confidence in their ability to master their classroom knowledge was at an intermediate level via online instruction (6/10), and participants' confidence in the instructor's ability to teach knowledge in online classes is moderate to high (7/10). The results align with the open-ended question response in which students were somewhat more concerned about their ability to learn than the instructor's ability to teach. The themes and analysis will be a valuable tool to help institutions and instructors improve student learning experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work-in-progress paper seeks to examine faculty choice of teaching strategies to improve students' engineering self-efficacy [1], [2] (belief in one's abilities to successfully accomplish tasks in engineering) as well as their reflections on the effectiveness of the teaching strategy. Increases in self-efficacy have been related to improved academic and career outcomes [3], especially for women in non-traditional fields such as engineering. The goal of the study is to determine simple yet effective strategies that can be implemented in engineering classrooms to improve self-efficacy. Seven engineering faculty members participated in a faculty learning community (FLC), a semester long program to learn about teaching strategies in each of the four areas of selfefficacy; mastery experiences (e.g., active learning, scaffolding), vicarious learning (e.g., guest lectures, peer mentors, group work), social persuasion (e.g., constructive feedback, positive selftalk), and emotional arousal (e.g., test anxiety, building rapport). The faculty then chose and implemented strategies in each of the four areas in one of their engineering courses. Monthly meetings of the FLC during implementation allowed faculty to share their experiences and suggestions for refinements in their teaching strategy. The paper examines the faculty member choice (why they chose to use particular strategies in their course) as well as their reflections on how well the strategy worked (impact on student learning vs ease of implementation). In addition, the paper examines in-class observations and student survey responses to determine if they felt a particular strategy was useful. The research seeks to identify strategies that faculty members chose and are viewed as effective by both the faculty and students. The presentation will seek additional feedback from the wider community on the effectiveness of teaching strategies to improve self-efficacy and future work will include the analysis of additional surveys that were administered to measure student self-efficacy with the goal of determining simple and effective strategies that can be implemented in engineering classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]