One of a series of educational packages designed for implementation either in a workshop atmosphere or through individual study, this Hot Topic guide presents a variety of materials to assist educators in designing and implementing classroom projects and activities centering on the topic of outcome-based education. The Hot Topic guide contains…

Aesthetics, or the philosophy of art, is perhaps the most troublesome discipline advocated in a discipline-based approach to art education. It is troublesome for many reasons, including its largely verbal nature and the lack of experience of most art teachers with its content and modes of inquiry. Nevertheless, aesthetics can serve as a basis for…

Since the 1920s, the focus of adult education has shifted from social change to professionalization to an emphasis on literacy and lifelong learning in a changing workplace. The adult education literature reflects ongoing debate over whether adult education should focus primarily on individuals or society and whether it should serve as a means of…

The field of educational technology was built on the positivist, modernist search for a best medium towards universal communication and the teaching of predetermined behavior and thinking patterns. Once, this medium was thought to be motion pictures, then television, then programmed instruction, and today it is hoped that it will be instructional…

Summarizes recent ERIC documents in early childhood education and related areas. Topics include the integrated character education model, conflicts and prospects of character education in multicultural education, and the role of the schools in character education. (ET)

To what extent was social change on center stage during adult education's formative years? Whose vision embraced social change and whose did not? What factors led to the decline of social action as a goal of adult education, and what factors suggest renewed interest in social goals? This paper examines these questions, beginning in the 1920s with…

Outcomes-based education (OBE) is a controversial model of educational restructuring that defines learning as what students can demonstrate that they know. This document reviews four journal articles and one bulletin that reflect a range of perspectives on OBE's potential promise and problems. In "Organizing for Results: The Basis of…

Describing the middle school as extending from the fifth or sixth through the eighth grades, this review describes current middle school philosophies and characteristics and cites middle school research and implications. Ideally, the report maintains, the middle school is designed to serve the needs of early adolescents through such techniques as…

Factors that contribute to useful measurement of the impact of educational programs on college students are reviewed. Chapters cover the following: goals of student outcomes assessment; philosophy of assessment; outcome taxonomies; issues of measurement in talent development assessment; cognitive outcome instruments; increasing the usefulness of…

Summarizes the knowledge acquired from the reading research reported in "Becoming a Nation of Readers" and draws implications for reading instruction. (HOD)

This report examines the importance of learning communities within institutions of higher education. It identifies two important dimensions of learning communities: (1) primary membership, which differentiates based on the characteristic that group members hold in common; these include learning organizations, faculty learning communities, and…

Reflective practice is a mode that integrates thought and action with reflection. Learning is dependent upon the integration of experience with reflection and of theory with practice. Experience is a basis for learning but reflection is the essential part of the learning process because it results in making sense or extracting meaning from the…

Postmodernism, which has been characterized as an outgrowth of or reaction to modernism, is more a form of questioning and a perspective than a theory or set of ideas. Although postmodernism resists definition, the following appear to be among its generally agreed-upon characteristics: questioning of all claims to absolute, universal truth;…

This bulletin discusses the aspects of curriculum development that relate to environmental education. The first of five sections establishes the need for curriculum development that addresses the emotional, cultural, and sociological factors that influence the curriculum framework in view of the need for educational reform. The second section…

Cites the need for scholarly activity in instructional technology and argues that it should be shifted from education, with its focus on teacher preparation, to technology, where there would be more freedom to explore the consequences of techniques, methods, instruments, and processes inherent in the field. Thirty-two references are cited. (MBR)