Assessing Diverse Populations VIDEO
This program explores the question of whether or not student diversity represents an issue in assessment and evaluation testing. It also discusses whether low test results among special populations can be attributed to inappropriate testing methods. Edmund Gordon, Professor of Psychology at Yale University, discusses inequities in the educational and assessment system that lead to inaccurate conclusions regarding student progress. (29 minutes, color).

Charter Schools That Work  VIDEO
Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Clarence Page hosts this in-depth look at a grassroots revolution in American education barely a decade old: charter schools. Reasons for the movement’s emergence, as well as different philosophies and methodologies, are seen in visits to several charter schools, including North Star Academy in Newark, KIPP Academy in Houston, and the Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in Los Angeles. The video offers interviews with a wide array of teachers, administrators, parents, and students, as well as commentary from leading education experts, including Sandra Feldman, president of the American Federation of Teachers, and Dr. Bruno Manno, co-author of Charter Schools in Action. (60 minutes, color)

Educating to End Inequity  VIDEO
This program addresses teachers’ efforts to level the educational and social playing fields for their students by examining public school reform and its relationship to social change. Educators who taught on the western frontier in the late 19th century and in the South during desegregation are spotlighted, along with contemporary instructors working with Native Americans in New Mexico and inner-city youth in New York. Visionaries including Joseph Abeyta, of the Santa Fe Indian School; Ann Cook, of Urban Academy; and retired North Carolina school principal Kat Crosby consider cultural identity, teaching for diversity, performance-based assessment, and other topics. (54 minutes, color)

EQ and the Emotional Curriculum  VIDEO
IQ used to be the standard by which all were judged. Today, EQ allows for a broader understanding that encompasses attributes such as logical, linguistic, musical, kinetic, and emotional intelligences. This program provides an in-depth analysis of intelligence, including how it is defined and its neural components. Leading experts such as Harvard’s Howard Gardner; Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence; Colin Blakemore, of Oxford University; and Alison Gopnik, of the University of California, Berkeley, examine the correlation between self-control and SAT scores, the dominant role of the limbic system, and how emotional and intellectual intelligences can be defined and meaningfully measured. Not available in French-speaking Canada. (50 minutes, color)

Fragments of Genius: Understanding Savants VIDEO
By any standard, Derek Paravacini is an exceptional pianist. Stephen Wiltshire can draw whole cityscapes from memory with uncanny accuracy. Both are savants with severe learning disabilities due to autism. Focusing on these two case studies, the program looks at how a disability sometimes unlocks extraordinary abilities, as well as how research on savants has led to a better understanding of brain function. Allan Snyder, professor of science and the mind at the University of Sydney, discusses several theories of savant skills, while Dr. Bruce Miller shares his work on dementia which led him to identify a region of the brain that when damaged produces savant behavior. Original BBCW broadcast title: Fragments of Genius. (50 minutes, color)

Further Approaches to Learning VIDEO
This program explores alternative approaches and explanations of learning, including latent learning, learning sets, insight learning, ethology, social learning, and neuroscience. The program emphasizes the recent move towards a cognitive theory of learning and examines research in this area. The program includes archival film featuring B. F. Skinner and Dr. Robert Epstein, who demonstrated apparent "insight" learning in pigeons using behaviorist techniques. Skinner, speaking just before his death, claims that reinforcement rather than higher mental processes is at work in learning. The cognitive behaviorists think differently! (57 minutes, color)

Getting Along with Others   VIDEO
This engaging video teaches basic skills for getting along with others. Six "problem" personality types are identified, along with ways to deal with them. Healthy behaviors are explored in the context of several principles of positive communication: following the golden rule; accepting differences; not expecting too much; and compromising. This program is full of fast-paced vignettes illustrating techniques for more effective living while keeping the viewer interested and amused! A Cambridge Educational Production

The Gifted Child VIDEO
When a child displays advanced skills in one or more areas of development, a special challenge is set before teachers, parents, and childcare providers alike. This program seeks to foster an understanding of gifted children by identifying their characteristics, addressing their educational needs, and recommending ways to enhance their development. A Meridian Production. (24 minutes, color)

Growing Up Hispanic: Children in Crisis VIDEO

Reports from reputable medical sources reveal a statistical correlation between healthcare issues and poor academic performance in Hispanic communities nationwide. In this program, the National Council of La Raza’s Raul Yzaguirre, former Surgeon General David Satcher, the Hispanic Dental Association’s Nelson Artiga, and other experts address the pervasive health concerns—most notably dental problems and pediatric obesity—and insufficient access to healthcare that plague America’s Hispanic population, significantly undermining Latino children’s education as well as long-term well-being. Health initiatives in California, Texas, Florida, and New York are featured, along with case studies from those states. (58 minutes, color)

How Families Differ VIDEO
Families take many forms—two-parent, single, single-divorced, blended. This video discusses the differences and makes the point that a family's function is more important than its form. Experts and family members provide insight into the problems faced by the changing structure of the family. A Meridian Production. (15 min.)

Individual Differences: Gender, Training, and Physical Performance in Sport  VIDEO
Why are some able to perform tremendous physical tasks, while others cannot? More specifically, why are males able to perform in ways females cannot? This program answers these questions and more by examining and calculating various indicators of physical fitness: percentage body fat, upper body size and strength, VO2 maximum, stroke volume, heart rate, cardiac output, hemoglobin and red blood cell count, and arteriovenous oxygen difference. An ideal anatomical and physiological learning resource for students and teachers of physical education. (27 minutes, color)

It Takes Many Colors to Make a Rainbow  VIDEO
Androgena and her friends, the pinkies, the blueies, and the greenies are a colorful introduction to diverse cultures for young children. This zany group is glad to show kids that everyone is special—just the way they are. No matter what color, culture, socioeconomic background, or gender, children can learn to accept the similarities and differences among their peers. This important video challenges some of the biases that are visible among young children and encourages them to grow up with a positive attitude about others. A Meridian Production. (11 min.)

The Learning Process VIDEO
Eager for knowledge, a child is by nature curious about everything. Why, then, is school such an unpleasant place for some children? In this program, teachers, researchers, a psychoanalyst, a neurologist, a neurobiologist, a psychomotor specialist, and others examine the process of learning and the classroom as a learning center. Mastery of reading and writing—the key to unlocking all forms of communication and the entry point to many other exciting domains—is emphasized. In addition, the concept of multiple intelligences is explored. Not available in French-speaking Canada. (52 minutes, color)

Optimizing Different Learning Styles  VIDEO
This program provides a helpful guide to teachers for recognizing their students’ primary styles of acquiring and working with information: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. To illustrate each style’s impact on successful classroom learning, discussion focuses on the observation techniques used by visual learners; the hearing and repetition procedures practiced by auditory learners; and the hands-on approach preferred by kinesthetic learners. The program also identifies ways educators can plan and implement a variety of strategies that enable students to use the learning style that is best attuned to their needs. (30 minutes, color)

Reading Improvement  VIDEO
Reading rate and comprehension can mean the difference between success and failure to students. Three strategies for improving both are presented in this program. The first suggests reading during the day, for short periods in a quiet place, for maximum efficiency. One method demonstrates how to divide words into groups on a page as an effective way of improving reading rate. The SQ3R Strategy (Survey, Question, Read, Recite, and Review), developed by a leading reading expert, is also examined as a strategy for improving reading comprehension. (12 minutes, color)

Recognizing Children with Special Needs VIDEO
It's often difficult to determine a solution, unless you know all of the symptoms. This is especially true for parents who see their children less than does their child-care provider. In these cases, it is essential that you, as the child's primary caregiver, not only recognize their special needs, but additionally respond to them. This video describes a wide range of special needs symptoms from minor balance and movement problems to major or grand-mal seizures. (18 min.) A Meridian Production.

Respecting Diversity in the Classroom VIDEO
Too often educators look upon a multicultural classroom as a problem to be dealt with rather than a resource to be developed. Using actual classroom situations, this program is a "how to" primer offering innovative ideas about exploring the richness of culture and ethnicity. What is the difference between ethnicity and race? When children don’t respond, is it because of cultural differences or a teacher’s preconceived expectations? What roles can religion and language, both foreign and "street," play in the multicultural framework? What communication strategies best address differences in learning style and social interaction? This excellent workshop resource includes a 56-page facilitator’s guide with reproducible handouts. (60 minutes, color)

SPSS FOR INTRODUCTORY STATISTICS  BOOK with CD
Designed to help students learn to analyze and interpret research data using basic statistics, this new edition features SPSS 12.0, but can also be used with earlier versions. Each chapter introduces several statistics and provides instructions on how to run them and interpret the output. The authors describe the use and interpretation of these statistics in user-friendly, nontechnical language. The authors demonstrate how to choose the appropriate statistic based on the research design, how to interpret SPSS outputs, how to use SPSS to answer research questions, and how to write about the outputs.

Standardized Tests: Assessing the Price of Failure VIDEO
When leaving no child behind amounts to holding many children back, parents and politicians raise their eyebrows. This ABC News program seeks to understand the ramifications of high-stakes advancement and exit exams—tests that are being used to measure schools’ effectiveness, to allocate funding, and to shape the future of the nation’s children. The dilemma of how to cope with students displaced and emotionally stigmatized by failing these tests is discussed. The importance of keeping students in school until they master essential skills is also considered, as is perhaps the most troubling question of all: what about kids who simply do not test well? (21 minutes, color)

STATISTICS IN PLAIN ENGLISH  BOOK with CD
Statistics in Plain English, 2/e provides a brief, simple overview of statistics to help readers gain a better understanding of how statistics work and how to interpret them correctly. It presents brief explanations of statistical concepts and techniques in simple, everyday language. Each self-contained chapter consists of three sections. The first describes the statistic, including how it is used and what information it provides. The second section reviews how it works, how to calculate the formula, the strengths and weaknesses of the technique, and the conditions needed for its use. The final section provides examples that use and interpret the statistic.

STATISTICAL POWER ANALYSIS  BOOK with CD
This book presents a simple and general method for conducting statistical power analysis based on the widely used F statistic. The book illustrates how these analyses work and how they can be applied to problems of studying design, to evaluate others' research, and to choose the appropriate criterion for defining "statistically significant" outcomes.

Strategic Learning   VIDEO
This program outlines a concise three-step process for understanding and retaining information. The steps include exposure, review, and practice. Class attendance is stressed for maximum exposure to material. Valuable advice is provided on how to distill weekly lecture notes into a meaningful study guide. Methods for retrieving information learned include recitation and group study. (10 minutes, color)

Study of the Child: Theories of Development VIDEO
This video presents child development theories in action: cognitive, psychosexual, psychosocial, behaviorist, social learning, and sociocultural. The video focuses on the fact that theories often force caregivers to dwell on "parts" rather than "the whole child." A realistic interpretation of theories from Piaget, Freud, Erickson, Gesell, Skinner, and Vygotsky will clearly show the contradictions and lead to powerful discussion about how theories have impacted child development education. Not available for preview.
One 29-minute video.

Understanding Learning Disabilities VIDEO
How could a child be a top math student yet not be able to read? Why can another child read well but not be able to write a paragraph that makes sense? While watching children being taught new ways to learn, this program offers expert insight into the nature of learning disabilities, why learning disabilities may also be accompanied by ADHD or social disorders, and what can be done to help children learn to compensate and succeed. A Meridian Production. (16 minutes, color)

Understanding Parenting Styles VIDEO
Parenting styles are often a combination of a parent's own personality with the parenting role models she or he grew up with. The authoritarian style imposes will through rigid rules and allows little flexibility or freedom. A permissive style has few rules and abdicates power. And the democratic style is a blend of the two, sharing power and encouraging children to make good decisions and think for themselves. Using three vignettes, this program shows teens interacting with their parents in stressful situations that demonstrate the traits of each parenting style. A Meridian Production. (27 minutes, color)

Understanding Parenting Styles: Authoritarian-Democratic-Permissive  VIDEO
Parenting styles are often a combination of a parent’s own personality with the parenting role models she or he grew up with. The authoritarian style imposes will through rigid rules and allows little flexibility or freedom. A permissive style has few rules and abdicates power. And the democratic style is a blend of the two, sharing power and encouraging children to make good decisions and think for themselves. Using three vignettes, this program shows teens interacting with their parents in stressful situations that demonstrate the traits of each parenting style. A Meridian Production. (27 minutes, color)

Understanding Prejudice   VIDEO
This thought-provoking program discusses the nature of prejudice and the effect it has on individuals and society as a whole. Begins with a historical overview and defines key terms such as prejudice, discrimination, and bigotry. Interviews provide insight into different kinds of prejudices and stereotypes. Some topics discussed include multiculturalism, homosexuality, politically correct language, the role of the media, and religion. Hear first-hand various opinions about prejudice, personal experiences of discrimination, as well as successful approaches to promoting tolerance. This video serves as a tool to provoke thought, discussion, and understanding of crucial issues that affect us all.