Alternative scheduling provides community colleges with a means to adapt to declining enrollments and fiscal exigencies, and to respond the demand for accountability to students. Strategies such as departing from traditional semester- or quarter-length courses and developing weekend programs have been implemented at certain institutions to…

This digest addresses issues that should be considered in proposing technological solutions to the problems of public education. Although the potential benefits of the widespread application of media to instruction are supported, emphasis is on the need to define technology as a technique of designing instruction, rather than the more common…

Information concerning methods and available materials for conserving energy is needed by small, rural schools to offset continued increasing energy costs and lack of financial support and technical assistance. The first step in developing an energy conservation policy is to obtain school board commitment and to establish an energy saving policy.…

Designed to demonstrate that the ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) database is a useful source of information for educational practitioners at all levels, this digest provides an introduction to the ERIC system and describes the National Education Practice File Project (NEPF). This 2-year project was designed to find out from…

Research indicates that the relationship between class size and instructional effectiveness depends on a multitude of related variables, such as age level of students, subject matter taught, and instructional methods used. Recent statistical syntheses of this research reveal that the instructional benefits of smaller classes are most significant…

Because larger schools offer advantages such as a greater variety of activities, economic efficiency, and a sense of identity in the community, schools are often combined. Beyond these positive effects, however, school consolidation has some negative aspects. These liabilities include less human contact, less input from teachers in…

Arguments for lengthening the school day and/or school year are predicated on the notion that more time devoted to learning will yield proportionally higher achievement scores. Research reveals, however, that the correlation between time and achievement is far slighter than expected. The quality of instructional time is more important than…