ii.. ,.§4 * Students are no longer either Catholic, Jew, or Protestant; in fact, the fastest growing religion in the United States is Islam (Hodgkinson, 1998). * Most of the 5.3 million U.S. students with disabilities spend some part of their day in classes with nondisabled students (Kaye, 1997). * By 1995, bilingual programs were operating in nearly 200 U.S. schools (Rethinking Schools, 1998). * At least one-third of the school-aged population in the United States is nonwhite (Marlowe & Page, 1999). * 43 million people in the United States move every year (Hodgkinson, 1998), creating an increasingly mobile student population. In addition, trends such as multicultural education, antitracking pedagogy, inclusive education, dual bilingual programs, magnet schools, and multiage classrooms are contributing to the rich diversity of U.S. schools. The standards movement will have little meaning if it cannot respond to the needs of all these students. Can we develop standards and make curriculum, instruction, and assessment responsive to learning differences?

background

Making the Most of the Classroom Mosaic: A Constructivist Perspective.

Standards for Diverse Learners.

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The Correlation between Poverty and Learning: What Can Be Done to Help Children with Limited Resources Learn.

This study assesses the level of inclusion of multicultural education materials and activities in kindergarten classrooms in the State of Florida. The researcher developed a two-part questionnaire which was mailed to one thousand kindergarten teachers selected by systematic sampling. Part one of the questionnaire contained seventyeight items regarding the teacher, the students and the classroom structure. Part two asked teachers to respond to forty-three items relating to the physical environment of the classroom, instructional strategies, the curriculum and various content areas. The items in Part Two were based on three levels of inclusion with Level I indicating inclusion more than 80% of the time. Four hundred and seventy-seven teachers from fifty-four of Florida’s sixty seven counties responded to the survey. Although there were some areas where teachers did include materials and activities such as ethnic holiday celebrations, overall, more could be done.

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It Is Never Too Soon: A Study of Kindergarten Teachers' Implementation of Multicultural Education in Florida's Classrooms.

Over the past twenty years, there has been an enormous financial investment in technology for K-12 schools to help bridge the digital divide between high and low socioeconomic (SES) students. These investments have included hardware, software, professional development, and research studies on the effectiveness of technology in the classroom. 
This dissertation explored the essential conditions for the integration of technology, access, student-centered learning environment, and teacher use in the curriculum. Florida's elementary schools were divided into quartiles based on free and reduced lunch to investigate differences between the top quartile of high SES schools (n=400) and the lower quartile of low SES (schools n=396). The first research question investigated students' access to technology by specifically concentrating on their access to computers in high and low SES schools. A statistically significant difference was found between students' access to modern computer labs and modern laptop computers. However, there were no significant differences in access to modern classroom computers. When looking at software on student computers, a statistically significant difference between high and low SES schools was found in the availability of both basic tool-based software and robust tool-based software. These data mirrored the statistically significant difference for frequency of use for tool-based software at high and low SES schools. Data on the teacher use of technology in the curricular framework of the classroom showed a statistically significant difference in the curriculum-focused use of technology, between high and low SES schools. 
This study is a building block for further examination of the digital divide that exists between high and low SES schools. This divide appears to include low expectations for students in low SES schools through regular exposure to drill and practice software, while students in schools with high-SES populations have more opportunities to utilize tool-based software.

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Technology in low socio-economic k--12 schools: examining student access and implementation

The purpose of this study was to examine the meanings women make of their participation in a Supplemental Instruction (SI) program associated with a postsecondary non-majors biology course Interview and survey data were utilized to determine why women attended SI, the affordances provided by regular SI participation, how women depicted the learning environment of SI, and how women described science as they experienced it in SI Additional interviews were conducted with a sub-population of participants who regularly utilized SI to provide an understanding of the role SI participation played in terms of access to science identities for women who changed their majors, minors, or concentration within an education major to biology as a result of their experiences in non-majors biology and SI The results of this study suggest that the SI experience provides more than just a means to increase grades for women who participate regularly The supportive and safe climate of the SI environment set a comfort level for women that increased their competence and confidence in biology The SI experience increased interest in biology and afforded the opportunity for women to be recognized by others, and to recognize themselves, for their science abilities Additionally, for a small number of women, their experiences in non-majors biology and SI facilitated a shift in science identities that led the women to immigrate into science

Making the Most of the Classroom Mosaic: A Constructivist Perspective.

Citations

Standards for Diverse Learners.

The Correlation between Poverty and Learning: What Can Be Done to Help Children with Limited Resources Learn.

It Is Never Too Soon: A Study of Kindergarten Teachers' Implementation of Multicultural Education in Florida's Classrooms.

Technology in low socio-economic k--12 schools: examining student access and implementation

Supplemental Instruction for Non-Science Majors Biology Students: Meanings and Influences on Science Identities for Women