In response to numerous criticisms of technocratic models of social studies curricula this paper describes a critical approach to curriculum design. Major areas of criticism related to knowledge, learning and evaluation, and teaching are explored as they relate to issues of curriculum planning and implementation and a critical approach to…

This report describes a demonstration project whose instructional design implemented sociolinguistic concepts in bilingual education and compared two approaches, the New Concurrent and the Language Separation approaches. The first section is a review of research studies concerning this instructional design. The second, third, and fourth sections…

The effect of computer-assisted instruction versus the traditional lecture method on final grades was compared with two groups of students taking two business organization classes at Fayetteville Technical Institute. Thirty-two students attended four 1-hour lectures per week (the control group), while 38 students received computer-assisted…

A study compared reading instruction in two South Carolina public elementary schools, Sumner and Danville, that receive federal funding for remedial reading instruction under Chapter 1 of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act. The two schools vary in many ways--Danville is a "traditional" school in a predominantly black urban…

To examine the effects of word processing on basic writers, a pilot study compared two classes of basic writers (40 students)--one class using word processors and one class using handwriting--at Glenville State College in West Virginia. At the beginning of the semester, students from both sections wrote one explanatory essay and one persuasive…

The concept of andragogy is posited on four key assumptions about adult learners that distinguish them from child learners and that thus abrogate the premises upon which traditional pedagogy is based. In traditional pedagogy, the role of the learner is one of dependency. Andragogy, on the other hand, recognizes the deep psychological need of…

Researchers and teachers are beginning to realize that reading and writing are closely linked. Language experience is the key to success in reading and writing. Teachers must enrich students' language experiences by reading to them, talking with them, fostering an environment that recognizes their worth as language users, and modeling expected…

This paper reports research on differences between teaching in the primary and intermediate grades. Hypotheses concerning differences in teacher behaviors, teacher communications, grouping, teacher control, and types of materials were developed. Six 1st- and 2nd-grade classes and five 4th- and 5th-grade classes were observed for four 45-minute…

The features of an early childhood education demonstration program, Visions for Children, are delineated in this paper. The program was designed to facilitate the intellectual development, boost the academic achievement, and enhance the self-concepts of African-American preschool children. The program implements a curriculum that focuses on…

"Inquiry Training," a teaching technique promoted during the 1960s, involves students gathering information about a discrepant event or puzzling situation, and formulating theories to explain the event. Continuing the work of two studies into the efficacy of Inquiry Training (subsequently renamed Cognition Enhancement), a more refined…

The psychological and linguistic rationales for an integrative approach to teaching reading and language that is based on the language experience and shared book approaches are presented, and the necessary changes in the Singapore educational system are outlined. Because the program is an integrated language arts approach, reading instruction time…

Twenty-two fifth-grade teachers participated in a study designed to determine whether, given typical basal text material and the opportunity to learn, the more effective classroom teachers of reading would be those who provided explicit explanations on how to use reading skills strategically when reading. The treatment group of teachers was…

An interest in conditions of practice and feedback led to a study which examined the effect on writing by elementary school students of (1) two types of practice, both similar to "free focused writing"; (2) practice at a frequency greater than once a week; and (3) a procedure by which students measured their own performance and provided themselves…

In this study, two different approaches to the teaching of reading were designed and presented over an eight-week period, then evaluated according to student scores on three standardized tests. After a pretest, nine first-grade classes were randomly assigned to one of three groups: literature, concept development, or control. In the literature…

The term "direct instruction" is often used by researchers and educators as if there were consensus regarding its meaning, when in fact, it covers a variety of qualitative differences. To test this hypothesis, two second grade teachers, each categorized as a proponent of direct instruction, were studied using descriptive techniques. The…