A new body of research shows that project-based learning (PBL) can be effective in improving students' academic performance and attempts to define some of the key practices that are essential to PBL. Kristin De Vivo summarizes key findings of four studies that covered multiple grade levels and subjects. The studies found that PBL is effective…

Boston Arts Academy provides an example of how high schools can incorporate the arts into academics. Incorporating the arts into all high schools can benefit student learning because students are able to make connections and to apply their learning in concrete ways.

In this article, the author argues that teaching "technological literacy" at the expense of hands-on skills training is wrong for the students, wrong for the economy, and wrong for the nation. Students need not only the opportunity to explore a variety of trade skills but also the opportunity to learn a skill well. It is in the teaching…

To circumvent typical public schooling restrictions, an upstate New York middle school established a Lab School that functions outside the regular program. Lab School aims to provide practice in intellectual inquiry, delve into complex, demanding topics, create an interdisciplinary, problem-oriented curriculum, and experiment with assessment…

Educators should want more from their efforts than adequate academic achievement. Caring and developing people who care are fundamental in teaching. In the absence of radical structural change, teachers and parents can show their caring by cooperating in children's activities, sharing their own dreams and doubts, and facilitating individual…

Fascination with pedagogical technique has denigrated the intellectual life of K-12 educators and furthered the proliferation of "interdisciplinary" instructional approaches that blur important distinctions among disciplines. An atmosphere that values technique over substance tends to drive out or marginalize educators who enjoy reading and…

The Holocaust has challenged students, scholars, and educators to make sense of a ghastly episode of modern times. Multidisciplinary accounts of the Holocaust should not mix history and literature domains and their symbol systems haphazardly, but should honor each domain while pursuing a fuller understanding of the experience. Docudramas confuse…

Examines the difficulties that plague the middle school movement and why there has been little substantive reform in changing from junior high schools to middle schools. (Author/WD)

In Europe, global interdependence has defeated conventional approaches to studying Europe. "European Studies"--popular during the seventies--became academically colonized and impoverished. "Europe across the curriculum" is presently risking diffuseness. Treatment of Europe in European schools will have to be coherent,…

Examines nine case studies involving science, mathematics, and cross-disciplinary curriculum reform. Common dilemmas included content coverage/depth of understanding, parental resistance, and insufficient time. Successful curriculum reformers relied on national and state guidelines, teacher collaboration, and local teacher leaders. Reformers must…

Ethnic-studies programs, arising from a student and community grass-roots movement, challenge the prevailing academic power structure and the Eurocentric curricula of American colleges and universities. There is little uniformity or stability among 700 ethnic-specific programs and departments. The challenge is reconciling academic goals (knowledge…

A secondary education curriculum model is proposed that provides for individualized programs, including both academic study and direct student involvement in efforts to solve contemporary social problems. (JK)

Reviews a publication that surveys recent curriculum developments at the secondary level in Europe. Covers information on the inclusion of new areas of knowledge in school curricula, the creation of interdisciplinary courses, and the promotion of more autonomous work by pupils. (Author/WD)

In 1973, the founding administrator of a Long Island high school proposed adoption of a student advisory system, team teaching in the humanities, and no academic department chairs. Convinced that having chairs diminished teachers' stature, this principal successfully encouraged teachers to work together to develop curriculum, prepare budgets, hire…