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Videotaping was used to analyze both video and audio components of the teaching-learning process with educable mentally retarded (EMR) children. Fifteen teachers, both inexperienced and experienced, made 31 pilot tapes, teaching one retarded and one normal child each the single, new concept of a hexagon. The 31 children included 14 EMR (ages 9-2 to 11-3), 15 normals (5-9 to 6-5), one blind, and one deaf. Results indicated that a 1.52 ratio of reinforcing statements was made by the three most successful as opposed to the three least successful teachers; teachers used an average of 429 words to 56 spoken by EMR's and 404 to 51 with the normal children, although the total average number of comments by teachers was 21.9 and 20.5 by pupils. The word hexagon was mentioned with a frequency ratio of 2.7 by teachers to pupils; the number and type of materials did not make a difference in successful teaching, although the average number used, nine, was probably too many. All teachers made more gestures than pupils; and the EMR children made more gestures than normal children. The model teaching activities used to classify and rate the videotapes rev"aled the inexperienced teachers taught closer to the criterion test items. A 30-minute test of teacher competence was generated that involved planning, performance, and ability to learn from review of own performance. (SN)

1Boy Crusoe

By Allan Eric

Also published as" A Yankee Crusoe" . A 15 year old hard working and studious farm boy finds the lure of adventure on the seas as a merchant seaman more than he can resist. This is his story. " I was born in a little town in the State of Maine, near the close of the Civil War. My boyhood life did not differ materially from that of the average farmer's son in the remote country districts of New England--except, perhaps, that I read more and thought more. Hard work on the rugged soil, two terms each year in the little yellow country schoolhouse, a day's fishing now and then filled the early years of my life full to over-flowing. " What he gets is enough excitement and adventure to overflow his wildest dreams. How he experiences disaster and uses his wits and knowledge to overcome every problem makes for a great read. - Summary by Phil Chenevert