The article describes the change in teacher training from instructivist to constructivist. The author defines constructivism and discusses its two main approaches: cognitive and social constructivism. The author then compares an instructivist versus a constructivist classroom and focuses on how they are different in terms of the level of…

Training of teaching assistants (TAs) in the Writing Program at the University of Massachusetts is described. Training prepares TAs for the responsibility of being the primary class instructors who design the curriculum, teach, and evaluate students with minimal supervision. Training sessions consist of an orientation workshop at the beginning of…

Problems in federal rural policy arise in a number of areas: the extreme economic adversity of rural America, failure to acknowledge the higher cost of providing rural services, failure to distinguish between rural programs and agriculture programs, and failure to address specific rural needs. Papers in this collection examine rural development…

Intended to help rehabilitation facility administrators increase organizational income from manufacturing and/or contracted service sources, this document provides a decision-making model for the development of a production consortium. The document consists of five chapters and two appendices. Chapter 1 defines the consortium concept, explains…

In spring 1986, the Glendale Community College (GCC) Board of Trustees made a substantial financial commitment to establish and maintain a professional development program designed to benefit all full- and part-time college employees. The underlying goal of the staff development activities is to maximize student access and outcomes by synthesizing…

A well-planned and well-conducted evaluation can provide useful information to funding agencies, sponsoring institutions, instructors, and participants. Evaluating an instructional program, such as a workshop or institute, involves collecting, organizing, analyzing, and reporting data about several features of the program and its impact on the…

On June 6, 1988, a statewide conference was held in New Jersey to increase cooperation between public, private, voluntary, and business communities working to expand child care services in the state. Substantive sections of this report of the conference provide: (1) statistics on child care in New Jersey; (2) a description of the day care…

This book includes an annotated bibliography of approximately 150 journal articles, manuscripts, books, and audiovisual materials, as well as a listing of some of the parent training groups which have developed workshops and other resources for parent training on the topic of supported employment for persons with disabilities. In addition to…

The human resources development plan presented in this report was developed by Cypress College (CC) to increase or refresh the knowledge and skills of classified staff, faculty, and administrators. The report reviews the colleges staff development plan, activities for 1988-89, and plans for 1989-90. Section I provides an overview of CC's staff…

The thesis of this conference report is that acceleration is a much more effective method than remediation for bringing at-risk children into the educational mainstream at an early age. The papers summarized in the report provide a background on the history, politics, and demography of at-risk students and suggest applications of acceleration to…

Educators from Holland and member countries of the Council of Europe attended a symposium on innovation in primary education in the Netherlands. Much of the discussion was based on the evaluation report, "Lessons from Practice: the Primary Education Act Reviewed." Participants evaluated initial, partial research results, and compared…

A project was designed to enrich the career growth and development of inner-city handicapped junior high students by training parent-trainers using a trainer-of-trainers model. Through the training process, the project also aimed at forging a strong working relationship among collaborating groups whose personnel were being trained. To achieve…

Information on noncredit instructional activities at the State University of New York (SUNY) is presented, based on the biannual Survey of Noncredit Instructional Activities. These noncredit instructional activities require registration of participants and have a range of formats (e.g., courses, workshops, seminars, conferences, institutes). The…

This project was designed to demonstrate an effective means of ameliorating the problem of severe underrepresentation of minority faculty members (black faculty members in particular) among active educational researchers in the United States. It sought to address this problem by increasing opportunities for selected faculty in the historically…

The English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) Teacher Institute, created in 1980, is a staff development program for preparing instructors to use ESL techniques and materials. The Institute is for beginning and inexperienced ESL teachers. An evaluation of the 1986-87 institute was undertaken to determine the institute's impact on instructors' abilities…