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Based on extensive research, this practical guide offers library media specialists and teachers solutions and practical applications of educational technology within subject disciplines to help improve the achievement of at-risk students. Working in partnership, library media specialists and teachers at all levels of the educational system will find lesson plans, successful case studies, and project ideas for replication in language arts, science, and social studies. Mendrinos, an expert in educational technology, provides the results of her research into trends in integrating technology and information literacy into the curriculum and the effects of these cutting-edge efforts on the achievement of at-risk students. She then offers practical applications of successful teaching units for use with at-risk students. Exceptional educational technology programs show how to weave multimedia software, CD-ROM technology, videodiscs, and Internet resources into the curriculum to enhance learning and increase student productivity. Five high school and middle school library media specialists provide detailed educational technology programs for replication that have been successful with at-risk students. ... Read more

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Sponsored by SRI International

This book presents six instructional models that have proven successful in teaching such advanced skills as reading comprehension, written composition, and mathematical reasoning to students who generally would be expected to fare poorly in a typical school program.

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Excellent resource for teachers and parents
The articles in this book should be mandatory reading for all teachers, as well as for parents of learners with untapped potential.Included are strategies for developing lessons for at-risk students that unleash theirimaginations and empower them to become responsible for their owneducation.The teacher becomes the coach and the students develop lifelonglearning skills.This book holds the key to our drop-out problem inAmerica's schools. ... Read more

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The at-risk population is a growing segment of the American school population and one demanding the utmost from its teachers and program coordinators. ... Read more

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Here is an authoritative book featuring effective strategies to prevent school related problems among at-risk students. In response to the major crisis in our educational system that includes high drop-out rates, teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, and severe discipline problems, leading scholars, researchers, and practitioners present specific, well-tested guidelines for the development and assessment of approaches to identify at-risk behaviors. They also discuss intervention and prevention techniques that have proven successful in dealing with students who display at-risk behaviors.

Promoting Success With At-Risk Students will assist school personnel in the use of behavior self-management techniques, individualized contingency contracts, peer tutoring and cooperative learning, tactics for reducing academic anxiety, and time management techniques for both teachers and students. This remarkable volume also provides guidelines for promoting parental involvement in education, preventing student crises and discipline problems, and fostering positive relationships between at-risk students and faculty, staff, and other students.

Special and regular education teachers, special education administrators, school psychologists, school counselors, and school social workers will find the contents of the 14-chapter volume both informative and indispensable for their work with at-risk students. ... Read more

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This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more

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This book summarizes over 40 programs which enhance the success of students at risk. The emphases of these programs include individual students' learning skills, whole-school improvement, professional development, and parent and family improvement. Names and addresses of key people at each site are also included. ... Read more

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This book brought together several sources.
I keep the book next to my desk.I am asked on many occasions for referrals for students at risk.This is definitely a book to keep around. I look forward to future installments. ... Read more

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An inspirational model for teaching, an instructional model for learning.

For students and educators pursuing their Ed.D., this Educational Applied Dissertation Model can serve as a valuable framework for the creation of their own thesis.



For teachers and principals, this proven thesis can be used to develop, implement, or modify existing school practices to identify special education students and provide them with appropriate classroom services.



Dr. Karen Rooks-Dotson chose to examinestudent performance atone ofthe top-achieving neighborhood schools in Chicago. Focusing on the third grade, data indicated that more than 10% of the students referred for individual evaluations did not qualify for a specialized program and were in jeopardy of failing.



Dr. Rooks-Dotson supported the concept that every child is capable of learning and that help should be available to students and teachers in strengthening specific reading skills and in providing appropriate instructional materials. With the assistance of a revised local School-Based Problem-Solving (SBPS) procedure, she believes that every child would master his or her learning objectives and meet current academic standards set by the state school system.



The major accomplishments and achievements made during the implementation of her applied dissertation showed that the restructured program worked in improving student performance and that the proposed hypotheses were effective. Results also indicated that similar SBPS processes would likely benefit other schools in situations similar to the targeted elementary school and increase student achievement.

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An excellent resource
Reviewed by Carol Hoyer, PhD, for Reader Views (01/10)


Dr. Rooks-Dotson's book serves two valuable services, the first being is that it gives doctoral students an opportunity to see how a dissertation should be written and it provides information on how school districts can help those students who are at risk of failing or dropping out of school.

Dr. Rooks-Dotson believes that each student should receive an appropriate education that will identify, and strengthen, the students' learning styles. Doing her research in a Chicago school, the author found that ten percent of students who were referred for an evaluation or resources did not meet the school's criteria and, therefore, often fell through the cracks.

In the beginning, the author related that even though the school(s) had been putting into place new intervention plans, teachers and staff often felt overwhelmed with all they were required to do. Throughout each of her dissertation topics, the author provided charts, recommendations and comments on how to implement this new program supported by her literature review.

The recommendations made were excellent in my opinion, the first being that all teachers and staff have to fully commit to this new program. Everyone needs to be a team player and everyone needs to attend in-service training to better understand the goals of the program and how to implement them.

As an educator, I found this model of intervention to be easy-to-read, follow and duplicate. If every school put a program in place like the one found in "An Educational Applied Dissertation Model" by Karen P. Rooks-Dotson, Ed.D., we would have more children learning and being motivated to continue school.

A workbook for teachers to help them gain a greater grasp of how to identify the problems that a child might have
You have to know there's a problem before creating a solution. "An Educational Applied Dissertation Model: Effectively Identifying Students at Risk Using School-Based Problem Solving" is a workbook for teachers to help them gain a greater grasp of how to identify the problems that a child might have so that they can respond to them more effectively. Written by someone experienced with children who have had many educational problems, "An Educational Applied Dissertation Model" is of strong interest to many teachers who want to reach out to those children with educational problems before they go ignored for too long.

A valuable tool
For my dissertation and intellectual curiosity I read many doctoral dissertations for education and psychology. Many appeared to be much ado about very little.So, I was pleasantly surprised reading Dr. Karen Dotson's, "An Educational Applied Dissertation Model."

It was well designed and executed and it achieved her goal.The appendices will be most helpful for any school staff to use in reading improvement.There are other good models too, but hers is worthwhile.

The success is due to the process of taking the time to truly know a child physiologically, psychologically, socially, and culturally.

She used many "experts" outside the classroom to provide some of this data, but I believe a teacher team would be less costly and more effective in the long run. I did this beginning in 1962.

In Dr.Dotson's model the key is the working together of the resource support people to train the teachers.Her belief in their usefulness was part of the modest, but positive results. She assumed apathy was the cause of only 19% attendance in the in-service sessions. I think it was anger!Good teachers believe they are competent, so they need to be sold, not told about a better way.

In charter schools and schools where one or more teachers volunteer to create their own program there is the highest morale, the greatest energy, and (usually) the best results. Teachers (and students) with the freedom to challenge the status quo and attempt to figure out why something isn't working come up with appropriate models.They may research and try several until they discover what works best for them and their students.

To be fair Karen's results would have been better if she used a larger sample and more students who were in even greater need. I've looked like a magician when I've taken functionally illiterate students who were misdiagnosed and by building up their confidence and reading with each every day they roared through reading materials.A few of them would have made a difference.There are plenty in any low-performing school.

More teachers and students and fewer experts, Karen could have taught them the tools and mindsets that would have made the difference.They would not need her the next year and they would have the competency and enthusiasm to excite others to learn her model.

Instead of top-down mandates, it would be teachers learning, then inspiring and teaching others. I reiterate that teachers who believe in themselves are those who can get students to believe in their abilities.

Dr. Dotson's model could be a good beginning. ... Read more

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The contributors to this forward-looking book examine the various programmes and approaches which have been implemented in inner city schools in the United States to address the special needs of disadvantaged, non-English speaking, gifted and dropout students. The book suggests that the primary reason such programmes have been largely unsuccessful is that they have not been properly coordinated.

Making a Difference for Students at Risk offers thoughtful, practical suggestions for new approaches aimed at not only reforming, but transforming, urban schools in order to achieve the inclusion of all students into general school programmes. ... Read more

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Bempechat's well-written book takes a fresh look at vital questions about the academic achievement of minority children. Her examination of academically successful children within several different ?at-risk' ethnic groups yields unconventional and original insights about how children are socialized for schooling. A valuable contribution to the literature on achievement and motivation in multiethnic nations!
?Herbert P. Ginsburg, Jacob H. Schiff Foundation professor of psychology and education, Teachers College, Columbia University

From an original position that isolates the factors which predict academic performance, Harvard professor Janine Bempechat shatters the myths about success and failure among poor and minority students. With sound analysis and practical advice, Bempechat gives parents, educators?and anyone interested in the well-being of children?hope and inspiration as they strive for academic excellence in children.

Focusing on the factors that contribute to academic success?rather than analyzing the conditions that lead to failure and underachievement?Bempechat's book is a unique contribution to the understanding of societal and cultural effects on learning.Against the Odds reveals that high-achieving children, no matter what their ethnic or cultural background, have similar perceptions about their parents' educational beliefs and practices. And, surprisingly, Bempechat's research counters the commonly held view that academic success is tied primarily to an individual's belief in effort.

Written for teachers, psychologists, counselors, mentors?anyone interested in the welfare of children?Against the Odds is a guide to help create policy and curricula that will foster excellence and enable children?rich, middle-class, poor, minority, nonminority?to achieve their full potential.

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This volume represents six years of research in the area of students at risk and how the arts can help them. Drawing on research conclusions, the authors present practical teaching methods and suggestions for the music classroom. ... Read more

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A road map for educational survival
Mentoring Students at Risk is certainly the most researched volume on Mentoring and focused specifically on alternative education. The main thrust of alternative education is individualized instruction in smallschools, located in non-traditional settings emphasizing improvement ofbasic skills and other experiential types of learning.This volume isrichly documented with over fifty research projects and includes a usefulbibliography for administrators and teachers alike.An excellent volumefor teachers of students labeled in the "at risk category" andespecially parents who are considering alternative education. ... Read more

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Designed to help pre- and in-service teachers address student problems in social behavior, this step-by-step guide uses a continuing case study to illustrate each of the steps for assessing behavior and planning interventions. Practical, straightforward, and easy-to-understand, this is the sort of book that students and teachers can pick up and put to immediate use. ... Read more