Thesis--Wisconsin. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 182-190).

The purpose of this study is to provide some sound procedures for the organization of the school and the community. Most educations today appear to be in agreement upon the fact that the school and the community should be organized.

South Africa is faced with socio-economic challenges of poverty, unemployment, health issues, drug abuse and many more. Stakeholders such as public, private sectors as well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are trying to address some of these socio-economic challenges. For example, the public sector has initiated amongst other programs, an Extended Public Works Programme (EPWP) to create job opportunities specifically for semi-skilled and unskilled people, private sector is offering learner-ship opportunities to newly qualified students in order to gain work experience and NGOs have initiated various community based programs where community members are assisted to make a living and being cautioned about health and other issues through awareness campaigns. This research has been initiated to try and address skills shortages that could reduce unemployment and further assist community members to make a living through starting their own businesses. The researcher has identified schools as one of the community resources that could be used to teach basic skills in the communities as schools have human and physical resources that could be utilized to teach these skills. For this research specific school subjects in particular have been identified as having the potential of transferring the theory that is taught in schools into skills which could be taught to community members. The community skills development program was a proposed tool and if is set up could try and address the skills shortages in communities. The research has been conducted focusing on school teachers teaching specific subjects as well as community development practitioners. The majority of research participants’ responses were positive about the setting up of a skills development program. Benefits for community members such as employment which could reduce poverty, crime and drug abuse were highlighted while challenges such as funding and availability of facilitators were also mentioned. A further study has been recommended to continue with specific processes of setting up this skill development program.

The problem of this study is to determine the type of program needed for a rural community school based on the needs of the children, the youth, and the adults, and on the available facilities.

Students of all abilities at a Full-Service Community School (FSCS) in northern New Jersey are not meeting federal and state accountability requirements in language arts. Research studies indicated that the FSCS strategy can improve instructional practices, which will improve academic success. For this qualitative case study, the purpose was to document and analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the FSCS academic component for language arts used by 8 teachers from kindergarten to 6th grade. The conceptual framework that guided this study was grounded in the central understanding of Vygotsky and the constructivist theory of Bruner. The perceptions of language arts teachers who taught for at least two years in the district and utilized the FSCS academic component were necessary in identifying ways to improve teacher instruction. The study examined teachers' perspectives through interviews and the research questions focused on the strengths and weaknesses of the academically integrated FSCS strategy. The data was then transcribed and the data analysis of open coding was used to determine themes. The strengths included the mission, vision, and goals and the perceived weaknesses were focused on collaboration and the lack of time to collaborate. Based on the research findings it is recommended that a collaborative period be added to the master schedule to allow more opportunities to collaborate and improve instructional practices for language arts. Implementing the collaborative period may contribute to positive social change by allowing teachers and FSCS members to create common formative assessments, review student data, and lesson plan to improve instruction, which, ultimately may lead to higher levels of academic success for students in Language Arts.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of the presence of peers upon the oral reading performance of high achieving and low achieving students in a regular classroom setting.Related literature and research in the area of social facilitation has indicated that the presence of an audience serves to increase drive level. The interaction of drive level and habit strength results in the emission of dominant responses. During early stages of learning, incorrect responses are dominant since a response hierarchy has not been established. As learning occurs and mastery level is approached, correct responses become dominant.In order to relate these research findings to the classroom, subjects whose reading skills were below grade level were selected to represent those in the learning stage. Students whose reading skills placed them above grade level were selected to represent those in the mastery stage.The research hypotheses were as follows:1. The presence of peers will adversely affect a student's performance on an oral reading task when the instructional reading level of that student is below grade level.2. The presence of peers will enhance a student's performance on an oral reading task when the instructional reading level of that student is above grade level.Subjects were drawn from five fourth grade classes in two elementary schools in east central Indiana. A total of 76 subjects (34 low achievers and 42 high achievers) participated in the study. Participation in the study required that each student read orally at his instructional level a one hundred word passage in the presence of peers and again in isolation. Instructional levels were determined for each student through the administration of an initial placement test. This is a group test which is provided for each reading level to ensure that the student is placed at his/her instructional level. The passages read were drawn from supplementary materials provided with the basal. reading series and designed for use at appropriate instructional levels. The passages were unfamiliar to the subjects. Data were collected in the classroom during the regularly schedule reading period in an effort to maintain normal classroom atmosphere. The subject's performance was tape recorded under each treatment condition. These tape recordings were later scored by a panel of judges. Responses which were scored as errors were miscues, repetitions, insertions, and omissions. The dependent variable was the subject's oral reading performance under each of the two treatment conditions. Oral reading performance was selected as the dependent variable because it represents not only an observable, measureable variable, bat also an established classroom activity.A repeated measures design was utilized to investigate differences- in performance of high achievers and of low achievers under audience present and audience absent conditions. Since the research hypotheses were directional in nature, a one tailed t test for correlated groups was selected to determine the statistical significance of the differences between means using the .05 level of confidence.Results of statistical analysis revealed that there was no significant difference between the oral reading performance of either the low achieving or high achieving groups under audience present and audience absent conditions. Thus support was not found for the research hypotheses that the presence of an audience would adversely affect the oral reading performance of low achieving subjects and enhance the performance of high achieving subjects.

Since the seventies, the Quebec Government has repeatedly expressed its determination to make community schools a reality. We argue that two major obstacles inhibit the realisation of this project on the Island of Montreal. Because of the existing school system division along religious lines, the average school catchment area is too large for all schools to become central places for their communities. Second, the formal participation offered to parents does not allow them any real involvement in school life. We propose a geographical method for a local population to contribute to the staging of local school life. For local values to penetrate the school, they must first be identified. We conducted analysis of the school landscape at geographical scales ranging from the neighborhood to the classroom, in order to show how this landscape expresses values which can be evaluated by a local community. For our purposes, we conceive of the landscape as a theater or a stage set. This approach could constitute a new avenue for re-situating the school in its community.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Texas, Aug., 2009. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

It is the purpose of this investigation to make a careful study of different community schools, and to determine to what extent they are promoting the education of the child and meeting the needs of the community in which he lives.

No description available.