An instructional program was constructed that explored the responses and perceptions of preservice elementary school teachers while finding and using characteristics to construct categories or concepts. The program integrated ideas about teaching thinking skills using computers. HyperCard and videodisk images were used to develop a program so that…

This manual describes an effective, cost- and time-efficient approach to basic education and vocational training for adults. The approach was developed during a pilot project in Massachusetts that featured the following: capitalizing on students' interests, hands-on vocational training, the expectation that students' motivation to learn a…

For a number of years it has been suggested that distance education is a natural extension of existing teaching methods that includes learners who are separated from the instructor by time or distance. This paper takes an alternative look at distance-education research and evaluation and proposes an evaluation model built on that view. That…

Teacher educators have become increasingly interested in the beliefs preservice teachers bring to their undergraduate methods courses. S. Lortie (1975) posited that the major influence in shaping future teachers' conceptions of teaching is their previous years of experience as students. A study of students in preservice reading methods courses…

This report provides information and conceptual tools needed to foster development of an interdisciplinary pedagogy geared to solving of environmental problems. It describes several procedures to further educational activities aimed at the solution of environmental problems. The approaches presented include the following: (1) The discussion group…

The development of Community-Centered Learning (CCL), an approach to using the classroom as a community, is described, with the writer's experiences in using the model in three classes over a semester. A community is regarded as a group of people who share common goals and traditions, who realize their interdependence, and who strive to care for…

This study examined to what extent teachers who choose to take a course about cooperative learning implement the innovation and which factors account for variation in use of cooperative learning in their classrooms. Nine female elementary teachers were observed and interviewed. Teachers were categorized as effective users, competent users,…

This book provides 12 papers on assessment, instruction, and policy making in special education and rehabilitation. Part I focuses on assessment, with the following papers: "A Theory of Human Behavior" (Ronald Eaves); "Describing the Cognitive Aspects of Intelligence" (David Sabatino and Hubert Vance); and "Critical Issues in the Diagnostic…

North Carolina is implementing a new accountability model, the ABCs (Accountability, Basics, and local Control) model. As a beginning examination of the implementation of this model, the Department of Public Instruction studied 11 high-poverty schools that demonstrated success in moving students up the state's Achievement Levels on the…

This document presents 28 accepted principles for modifying instruction to better meet needs of handicapped and at risk students. The principles include, among others: get to know the individual student in an informal manner; examine the patterns of children's errors; sequence skills to reduce error rates; vary response, testing, and grading…

Professors in a Communication Arts methods course for preservice and inservice elementary school teachers sought to move the content of the language arts curriculum from a direct instruction to a whole language model. A transformation came about as one professor realized that her efforts to enthusiastically convey the importance of authentic…

A project sought to determine if reluctant learners, about 30 percent of the adult basic education (ABE) population, can be retained in ABE classes through accommodations in the program structure and more effective teacher/counselor intervention. The project was based on earlier research findings that most ABE learners who drop out do so in the…

This document reports on a health promotion divisional workshop on popular education (PE) that was conducted to teach health promoters/educators to use PE methodology to analyze their educational work and role as health promoters and to learn to apply PE methodology during the health promotion activities. Information on the history and…

This paper contends that the historical roots of the project approach in the United States can give strength to early childhood educators today, offering insight and models for the implementation of child-oriented curriculum. The project approach to teaching and learning evolved as a result of the educational ideas of Friedrich Froebel, William…

Mastery learning represents a prolific area of research in educational psychology that encompasses two principal characteristics: (1) an optimistic set of assumptions regarding the capability of students to learn if alterable variables comprising the conditions of learning are optimized; and (2) an array of adaptive instructional procedures…