This paper describes a two-year implementation of the Adaptive Cycles of Teaching (ACT) curriculum model piloted in a new undergraduate special education program. Emphasizing learning by doing through iterative cycles of teaching pre-identified teaching practices in the real classroom, the ACT model has played an important role in creating an…

Cork, the Republic of Ireland's second most populous city, is one of 12 UNESCO Learning Cities globally. Becoming a learning city requires a sophisticated audit of education, learning and other socio-economic indicators. It also demands that cities become proactively engaged in delivering to the objectives set by the "Beijing Declaration on…

This qualitative study documented the variance of five different school districts and one consortium as they implemented Local Professional Development Committees (LPDCs). Two of the sites were pilot districts in the state of Ohio, which mandated that districts/consortiums create LPDCs effective in September 1998. The six different cases are…

This paper summarizes activities associated with school-improvement projects in 12 Louisiana School Effectiveness and Assistance Pilot Study (SEAP) Cohort One schools during school year 1997-98 and plans for future improvement activities in 1998-99. Faculty and administrators at each school were asked to revise their current school-improvement…

The Technical and Vocational Education Initiative (TVEI) is intended as a pilot, on a massive scale, of particular approaches, with a systematic need to identify TVEI effects on students, staff, resources, and curricula. TVEI has a strong tendency toward the development of pilot enclaves in terms of its administrative, curricular,…

This 3-month pilot study explores the techniques to be used in a year-long research effort for documenting the interventions made by principals as change facilitators in improvement programs. Two frameworks--a taxonomy and an anatomy of intervention--provide a means of describing and analyzing the interventions of the two principals studied. The…

Researchers designed and piloted a questionnaire that measures the level of implementation of exemplary middle school practices (based on the work of P. George and W. Alexander, 1993) using Rasch measurement theory. Assistant principals (n=26) participated in telephone interviews by responding to a 27-item questionnaire that contains items…

The Change Facilitator Stages of Concern Questionnaire (CFSoCQ) as a procedure for studying the concerns of change facilitators is presented. It is based on the work of Francis Fuller, the concept of Stages of Concern, and the Concerns Based Adoption Model which deal with change facilitators' concerns regarding implementation of an innovative…

Intended for school personnel, this report contains the findings and results of a pilot developmental kindergarten program in a Duval County, Florida school district that traditionally emphasized an academic kindergarten program. The report provides the baseline data that was the impetus for implementing the developmental program, the objectives…

In 1994, the Nebraska Articulation Planning Team (NAPT) was created to investigate opportunities for establishing horizontal and vertical articulation, curriculum integration, and staff development in the state to provide students with seamless pathways in their movement along the educational continuum. During the 1994-95 academic year, NAPT…

This paper begins by outlining the boundaries and assumptions of contemporary psychology as determined by the current American Psychological Association "Criteria for Accreditation of Doctoral Training and Internship Programs in Professional Psychology." The research and activities which led to the establishment of a two-year M.A.…

A conceptualization of educational indicator systems is presented, and their guiding principles and criteria are outlined. Three developmental projects are described that represent the indicator systems that promise to provide an explanatory framework for education. An indicator system should be perceived as an integrated whole in which the…

The development, pilot implementation, and formative evaluation of a teacher evaluation system for schools in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, are described. The system also assessed counselors and media personnel. A committee of 17 teachers and 9 administrative personnel developed the evaluation procedures and instrumentation. A 3-year cycle, which…

Based on the belief that critical thinking patterns, language abilities, and social skills that develop from birth to age 6 are foundational to children's sociomoral development, the Phoenix Project was developed to explore the factors contributing to and affecting children's sociomoral development. This pilot project was carried out by the…

After 2 years of a 5-year pilot project to develop approaches to strengthen basic competencies of students enrolled in vocational programs in Oklahoma, two of the projects were reviewed. The study sought to: (1) document the incidence and level of basic skills instruction, along with the teaching methods and materials used, in the vocational and…