This digest discusses the rationale for integrating academic and occupational education. It describes models for, and barriers to, integration, and offers suggestions for advancing integration efforts. Integration of academic and occupational education reinforces the shifting paradigm from teaching to learning and requires that students become…

This review of literature in the field of educational innovations includes discussions on the following areas: (1) resistance to change; (2) personality and psychological factors; (3) innovation attributes such as communicability and compatibility; (4) type of innovation decision making including those made by individuals, groups, and authority;…

This enthnographic study examines the process of implementing an interactive videodisc program in a senior high school. The research questions were: What happened during the implementation process and what factors facilitated or hindered the implementation of the innovation? Descriptive data were collected through participant observation,…

Recommending that every state increase the duration and intensity of academic learning time (ALT) in schools, this working paper provides a rationale, discusses related research, offers guidelines for selecting and implementing activities, and describes actions schools can take to implement change. In the discussion, duration refers to the total…

In 1985, Edward Koch, Mayor of New York City, established an Early Childhood Education Commission and gave it the task of recommending how best to begin to provide public education for all of the city's 4-year-olds, beginning in September, 1986. After introductory remarks indicating the confluence and interplay of social elements underpinning the…

Unquantifiable changes affecting attitudes of teachers, administrators, and students who were involved with a four-year comprehensive staff development effort are discussed. A brief overview and analysis of the Napa-Vacaville Follow Through Research Project describes the program designed to improve student engaged rates and achievement at two…

This report documents the objectives, methodology, and products of a study to develop criteria and standards for measuring the impact of vocational education demonstration projects. Section I provides background and describes the study's purpose and products. Section II summarizes the methodology used to conduct activities. Details of the…

A research investigation on how teachers actually implement team teaching focused upon individual teachers and how they used the innovation. The research was based on the Concerns-Based Adoption Model. The model proposes eight Levels of Use and common to all these Levels are seven categories that represent behaviors a user at any level might be…

This study examined the mobilization and implementation stages of introducing microcomputers into elementary and middle schools in a majority adopter (i.e., schools which began implementing microcomputers for instruction in 1983-84) school district. Data collection included structured interviews with school district staff and principals;…

This paper describes the researchers' attempt to apply a social organizational view to the task of developing and implementing peer coaching systems in two schools involved in a school improvement experiment. The premise for the study was based on three findings: (1) staff expectations influence the school's ability to change, (2) the tactics used…

This book describes 119 award-winning projects from a program which established a national teachers' competition to select and disseminate superior teacher-planned and developed programs which use photography as an integral part of the K-12 school curriculum. All subject areas, grade levels, and states are represented in summaries of projects that…

Developed for use by either secondary or postsecondary institutions offering vocational education programs, this handbook addresses steps in establishing a volunteer program in conjunction with its vocational education program. The handbook is organized around four major topics: (1) planning the volunteer program (securing support; needs…

The Quality Assistance Plan (QAP) for Vocational Education in Illinois is a state-funded program for locally initiated, developed, implemented, and evaluated projects that was begun in Fiscal Year 1982. Its purpose is to build the capacity, in each educational setting, for the improvement of vocational education programs. That improvement should…

Any attempts to improve excellence and equity in our schools must be predicated on the self-confident assumption that our schools can make a critical difference in the lives of children and young adults. Four propositions are offered as to what we know about school improvement: (1) public schools, individual classrooms, and school systems can and…

This paper summarizes some of the main conclusions of the Study of Dissemination Efforts Supporting School Improvement, specifically those regarding the process of innovation implementation. The focus is on the contributions of potential assisters to various implementation outcomes, from which implications for policy and practice are derived. The…