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Galaxy Classroom Project Evaluation, Language Arts, Grades 3-5. Final Report.

Authors :
Far West Lab. for Educational Research and Development, San Francisco, CA.
Guth, Gloria J. A.
Block, Clifford
Publication Year :
1993

Abstract

The GALAXY Language Arts Demonstration Program is a package of integrated curricular and instructional approaches that features the organization of instruction around themes presented through television broadcasts, children's literature, classroom activities, and the use of interactive technology. During the GALAXY Project demonstration phase for language arts in grades 3 through 5, classrooms in 37 schools were connected by an interactive satellite communications network. Seven successive themes were used, including such issues as fairness, personal privacy, and first impressions. Television broadcasts dramatized the GALAXY themes through a continuing show about the lives of a multicultural group of students. Specifically, GALAXY classrooms utilized a core of six literature books for each of the seven themes, a take-home magazine ("The Second Story"), a periodic response bulletin ("The Max"), a teacher's guide with suggestions on reading and writing strategies, and a wide choice of classroom activities for before, between, and after the two broadcasts for each theme. Measures of student learning were administered in all GALAXY classrooms and in two kinds of comparison classrooms, classrooms which were not using the program in GALAXY schools and others in demographically similar schools where GALAXY was not being implemented. Additionally repeated observations and interviews were carried out in five case study schools throughout the United States. Testing 2,826 students in GALAXY and comparison classrooms showed that GALAXY students outperformed others in reading and vocabulary growth, but GALAXY students did not outperform the others in writing achievement. Eleven appendixes provide technical information about the study, sample performance assessments, scoring guides, and results from a teacher survey. (Contains 8 figures, 37 tables, and 19 additional tables in the appendixes.) (SLD)

Details

Language :
English
Database :
ERIC
Publication Type :
Report
Accession number :
ED393886
Document Type :
Reports - Evaluative<br />Tests/Questionnaires