Noting that research and theory building in the area of listening have evolved from a variety of disciplines, this paper examines the contributions to listening theory made by humanistic psychology. The paper first offers an overview of humanistic psychology, examining some of the basic assumptions and postulates that serve as a foundation for…

This newsletter presents a critical view of some of the perils of translating research findings into classroom practice without careful examination of the human dimensions involved. The first issue discussed is ability grouping; it is pointed out that this practice does not necessarily increase academic achievement, particularly in the lower level…

Teacher centers began as small-scale, particularistic, dynamic, and tentative organizational forms. Each center developed its own personality, and no single institutional norm became the mold from which centers were cast. This fact has important implications for the kinds of collaborative arrangements into which teacher centers and teacher…

Three possible directions for literacy research in the United Kingdom (UK), in terms of three comparative perspectives are (1) cross-cultural, (2) academic/practitioner, and (3) adult/school. Walter Ong's argument that with the advent of writing human consciousness and ways of thinking were altered fundamentally, underlies many of the claims for…

An examination of the transformations that the concept of genius undergoes when viewed through the apparently incommensurable expressivistic and social views of composing helps to reconcile phenomenologically objective descriptions of composing with value-laden descriptions of the self in the act of writing. When the description of composition is…

To examine the ways in which participation in the Iowa Writing Project influenced secondary English language arts teachers, a study surveyed and interviewed teachers who participated in the 1982 and 1985 Iowa Writing Project about their beliefs and practices concerning writing instruction. In addition, case studies and over 70 hours of classroom…

Journalistic practice in the United States has gone through a number of changes in recent history, much of it because of television. The significance of these changes might be better understood with a theory on the social function of news and its relationship to the postmodern culture. News is considered in some way as the ground material of…

Cognitive mapping is used in this paper to develop a schemata which represents the knowledge domain or research and theory structure of the field of instructional technology (IST). Using the technique defined by Diekhoff and Diekhoff (1982), the primary set of concepts in instructional technology research were compared for similarity with all of…

Intended for those who want to teach composition primarily and centrally and not just as an adjunct to the study of literature, this book about the composing process provides continuing opportunities to put theory into practice. It consists of the following chapters: (1) "The Composing Process Is a Continuum"; (2) "Observing; Observing Your…

Issues for policymakers at the national and local authority levels concerning teacher appraisal are discussed, from the perspective of a local educational agency advisor in London, England. Teacher appraisal is one of the ways in which the plurality characterizing the English and Welsh education systems is being replaced by a national system. At…

The use of personal administrative experiences as bases for thinking about and effecting curricular reform in educational administration is discussed. The purposeful application of individual past experiences is valuable to the reform effort in that it taps a vital resource of individual knowledge and suggests a way of bridging the chasm between…

Despite the scope and accessibility of the current knowledge base in teaching, teachers rarely refer to research findings as a primary information source to guide their practice. If teacher education is to survive the onslaught of politically inspired alternative certification routes now operating in 20 states, it is critical that teacher…

According to John Friedmann, planning is meant to mediate knowledge and action, providing a conceptual and operational linkage between a certain body of knowledge and a certain set of activities in the policy-making domain. This linkage articulates the knowledge needs of action and informs knowledge by translating and processing pertinent insights…

The review describes the advance organizer technique and reviews the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of advance organizers with both normal students and students classified as handicapped. Examples of advance organizers include the expository advance organizer, the comparative advance organizer, the graphic advance organizer, and…

The function of basic writing in the university is to teach students whose language practices are most distant from prestige forms to use language in ways which will enable their advancement in college and in the world outside. In composition studies, the awareness that the intelligent activity of students can produce apparently…