Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) are often the center of discussion among faculty in higher education during discourse about curriculum conceptualization, design, planning development, and implementation. This commentary offers a functionally-centered framework that places faculty feasibility, fluidity, freedom, and flexibility around a core…

In "Space", relations, and the learning of science", Wolff-Michael Roth and Pei-Ling Hsu use ethnomethodology to explore high school interns learning shopwork and shoptalk in a research lab that is located in a world class facility for water quality analysis. Using interaction analysis they identify how spaces, like a research…

The United Nation's Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) aims to prepare students for pressing economic and environmental problems. In this article, I argue that an exclusive emphasis on an ambiguous goal, sustainable development, raises important questions for educational ethics. Specifically, I argue that DESD mission…

Intuition is a mode of thinking based more on sense and instinct than on logic and reason. It is somewhat suspect ability because it undermines our faith in reason and empirical research. But intuition can play a valid role in the design of the freshman composition curriculum. As a stereotypically feminine attribute, it complements current…

Based on a survey of individuals involved in decision making about technology education, the concerns of curriculum, teaching, facilities and equipment, role and place of technology education, and support and advocacy of technology education are discussed. Recommendations from the survey group are included. (KR)

This paper describes an undergraduate course for non-education majors which emphasizes rational decision making as advocated by John Dewey. The course, offered in 1976 by the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, had three instructional goals. These were to (1) provide students an opportunity to learn about…

The arts of perception, i.e., the arts that enable curriculum workers to see and make use of the significant and particular features of problematic situations, are discussed. The ability to discriminate and give meaning to details has received scant attention in the literature on practical curriculum problem solving. (RM)

In this article, the author provides a prefacing narrative that examines the work of Simpson et al. (2004, this issue), situating the reader as the importance of a framework for curriculum design. Importantly, the author illuminates a set a democratic values that animate the framework, and which work to instruct a democratic ethic of curriculum…

Analyzes some of the issues involved in the adaptation of science curricula. Identifies situation variables that affect "adaptedness," classifies these variables, and outlines the type of curriculum modification implied. Summarizes using a flow-chart indicating the sequence of questions preceding curriculum selection decisions. (GS)

Outlines a participatory approach to social studies education called "skills-in-living." This approach defines schooling and classroom work not as preparation for life, but life itself and emphasizes the application of social science concepts and generalizations to the real life decision-making, participation, communication, interaction skills of…

Institutions of higher education and nonprofit, volunteer-dependent agencies have much in common but are also potential competitors for public and private support, media attention, volunteer energies, and clients. New partnerships must address four issues: organizations, personnel, curriculum, and learners. (MLW)

Defends the role of humanities instruction in the education of engineering undergraduates in the areas of problem solving, risk taking, and the synthesis of metaphors and symbols. (AEA)

A conceptual model of curricular decision making that identifies curricular planning variables and clarifies the relationship among these variables is presented. Environmental inputs affecting decision making and design variables from which decisions evolve, and the relationship between input variables and curricular design are discussed.…

Discusses elements in selecting program content in the design of industrial arts curricula: the cluster approach, using a trade-and-job-analysis approach to curriculum design, or the concept approach, which takes a broader emphasis from the social institution of industry and the knowledge base of technology. (MF)

This descriptive report looks at Pensacola Junior College's (PJC's) efforts to: (1) define the competencies students are to acquire through the college's vocational and general education programs; and (2) map out a sequence of courses for each program, based on a hierarchical ranking of these competencies. The report first discusses an employer…