Center for New Schools (CNS) worked with the Illinois Office of Education to develop this guide for informing educational professionals and citizens interested in educational improvement concerning ways to carry out local problem solving in their schools. The guide focuses especially on parent involvement in the process of problem solving. Several…

In an age when decision making is becoming more and more significant for us human beings as we face dilemmas about whether or not to clone, to engineer behavior on mass scale, to expand or to decrease nuclear power, we educators must assist students to increase their decision-making skills. Many of our students will soon be decision makers for…

The present study compared learning in individual and small group settings, accounting for differences between conditions as partly a function of student ability and group process. The study had two parts. Part One provided a comparison of learning in individual and group settings. Students in Part Two performed two tasks, both in individual…

This document provides a dynamic action plan for social work services in secondary education. It defines, develops and evaluates social work services for students, parents and staff of one high school district. Questionnaires and evaluation criteria are included. The authors take the position that a primary function of social work in schools is…

One hundred twenty-seven participants at a June 1975 symposium in Squaw Valley, California, made use of a prescribed problem-solving process in order to originate a number of parts of a total staff development effort for a simulated community college. The developmental stages in the process included brainstorming, needs assessment, resource…

Two pilot studies investigated the effects of using Instructional Math Play (IMP) Kits, pamphlets with which individuals may play the mathematical game EQUATIONS against a computer program. Twenty-nine junior high students in a high-ability mathematics class completed varying numbers of the kits in five 48-minute sessions during a two-week period;…

This practicum was designed to improve creative problem-solving skills in children through the use of career concepts. Although the full program was developed for youngsters in grade three through six, this project exposed fifth and sixth graders at the Northside School, Levittown, New York to the Career Awareness Program for a period of weeks.…

Computer-assisted instruction (CAI) during the decade of the 60's was characterized by a number of limiting factors: insufficiently powerful computers and terminals, restriction to a few rigid "teaching strategies," and the splitting of resources among too many projects below critical size. During the present decade, CAI has undergone a…

The two essays contained in this discussion paper examine means for determining alternatives to formal education. "The Strategic Uses of Comparative Learning Environments" assumes that different environments are conducive to accomplishing different goals. In the future there is a need to find out more about the structural properties and…

The Productive Thinking Program (PTP), consisting of 16 programmed lessons designed to develop productive thinking skills, was used as the basis of a program conducted with 546 fifth graders in 21 classes in four upstate New York school districts. One hundred and twenty students from one of these districts were involved in a modified Solomon Four…

In this report from the National Education Association's "Developments in Classroom Instruction" series, the need to mandate immediate training of our young people in alternative problem solving for the future is examined. The emergence of multiple threats to human survival, rapid rate of social change, and complexity that has overtaken our…

Successful educational improvement efforts stem from processes and forces that are indigenous to a given setting. Efforts at problem-solving stimulate and are reinforced by a closely related phenomenon: the individual and professional growth of the persons involved. Developmental efforts in education must proceed from a substantially different…

Four hypotheses pertaining to conflict and its resolution in the team sport experience among seven Choctaw communities were tested: Choctaws have a unique conception of conflict vis-a-vis Anglos; this conception has a limiting effect on the exercise or occurrence of more dramatic forms of violence; this notion is reflected in Choctaw team sport…

The concept of personalized learning is developed in this book for teachers who want students to work and play at their own level of ability. Part one clarifies the concepts of personalized learning in chapters focusing upon teacher behavior, goal selection, and self-control. Part two offers practical applications at the teacher-student level,…

Both popular and academic perceptions of conflict have been historically negative. Conflict, however, or the discrepancy between the demands of the environment and the demands of a living system, is common to individuals, groups, organizations and societies, and is part of the communication process by which living things interact with their…