Much about designing learning experiences and supporting environments has been learned from the New Designs for Learning process. Looking at the history of education in the United States and high school change initiatives in other countries, project staff have found that designing schools for the future is a learning process in which staff,…

The measurement of change in quasi-experimental educational research was discussed. Problems related to measuring change exist to varying degrees in all research designs; these issues are less troublesome in experimental studies because the investigator can manipulate the interest variables and observe their effects on other variables. Measuring…

Sloyd (craft and design) education in Swedish comprehensive high schools was examined in a national evaluation. During the first phase of the evaluation, questionnaires were completed by 1,314 grade 9 students and 101 teachers. For a 10-week period, 200 of those students and their teachers kept diaries describing their work in craft and design. In…

The two sections of this report focus on recent research in the newspaper industry. The first section describes changes implemented in the design and layout of a Minnesota daily newspaper and the methodology and results of two surveys of readers' favorable reactions to the changes. The second section is designed to familiarize newspaper people…

This newsletter summarizes a research project in Sweden aimed at studying the participation of school personnel in the school planning process. The project involved following the planning of three schools in Sodertalje where the personnel had been given the opportunity to participate. Project data were collected by attending planning meetings;…

This set of four newsletters discusses current issues in gifted education. The first issue includes: "The Underserved Young Gifted Child: Status of Programs and Research" (Joan Smutny); "The Home Education Model: An Alternative Program for the Gifted" (Karen Kendig) and "Jonathan Swift (1667-1745): A Need for Gifted…

A project was conducted to develop three prototype comprehensive career planning programs and to offer those prototypes as models that could be used by both educators and personnel directors who are interested in helping employed women improve their occupational status. A national survey of programs in operation in community and junior colleges…

Three studies on teacher planning procedures are described and synthesized--a survey, a laboratory study, and a series of case studies. The primary goal of this research was to determine how teachers plan classroom activities, why they plan in certain ways, and what is the relationship between teacher planning and teaching effectiveness. A survey…

One of a series of sixteen knowledge transformation papers, this paper examines the advantages and disadvantages of longitudinal studies as a method for evaluating vocational programs. First, longitudinal methods are defined for the differences between them and cross-sectional studies are established. The results of a literature search conducted…

Many recent school-reform efforts have called for increasing decision-making power at the local school level. This report examines state differences in the amount of control that public school teachers believe they have over establishing curriculum; selecting textbooks and other instructional materials; and selecting topics, content, and skills to…

The document introduces a project to develop course packages integrating innovative and conventional economics teaching techniques. The major objective of the project was to improve productivity in economics teaching at the college level. The document is presented in four sections. Section I explains that the project was initiated in 1976 by TEFRC…

Background for this monograph comes from a study of in-school suspension programs conducted in schools in North Carolina. Chapter 1 focuses on the effectively disciplined school in terms of a total school perspective and the characteristics of a well-disciplined school. Chapter 2 addresses three categories of administrative discipline strategies:…

Educational reformers have come to recognize that establishing more challenging standards and assessments is not enough to raise student achievement. This brief identifies five challenges that confront educators and policymakers as they develop higher standards and other policies and structures to support improved student and teacher learning. It…

There is increasing interest in integrated studies or the integrated curriculum at all levels of schooling. Integrated approaches reveal wide differences in interpretation of what integration actually means and how it can be accomplished within the school setting. Chapter 1 discusses the various meanings of integration and some approaches taken to…

The first of five articles in this journal reports on a project aimed at studying the influence of the way in which problems of arithmetic are worded. Some variables in the wording were found to affect the performance of children, and terms were isolated which increased the percentage of failure. The second article describes a technique for…