This book is the second in a set of three study guides designed to help students of educational administration critically analyze contemporary theory in the field, examine the field from a new viewpoint, and develop their own, more practical knowledge base. The first of the book's three sections, by Gerry England, discusses three ways of thinking…

This book is the third in a set of three study guides designed to help students of educational administration critically analyze contemporary theory in the field, examine the field from a new viewpoint, and develop their own, more practical knowledge base. The first of the volume's three sections, by John Codd, explores the notion that…

Noting that the idea of linguistic case has evolved from an account of noun affixes (surface case) to an account of how syntactic relations between noun phrases and sentences map into deep relations between objects and events (deep case), this paper examines the notion of deep case as it applies to natural language understanding. Following a…

Those to whom teachers are accountable--administrators, parents, and the public--seem to be inclined to ignore the findings of more than 20 years of research into the process of efficient and proficient reading in favor of dehumanized instruction that reduces reading to bits and pieces of skills instruction. They cling to the metaphor of mind as…

An evaluation was made of the Effective Schools Program (ESP) conducted by the Mid-Continent Regional Educational Laboratory (McREL) for the 1984-85 academic year. The ESP is a research-based program designed to foster self-sustained improvement efforts at the school building level, through systematic long term staff development including…

The goal of the early childhood teacher training program at the University of Maryland in Baltimore County is to develop teachers who are able to integrate their own understandings and feelings of self with appropriate actions in the classroom. The program has four components, within each of which the teacher-in-training's knowledge, understanding…

The relevance of research to the role of teachers in classroom observation and appraisal is discussed. Focus is on: (1) the validity of classroom research literature and the credibility of classroom researchers, centering on content, methodology, and audience; (2) the role of research in teacher professionalism and empowerment; and (3) teacher…

The masking of experience as the basis of learning and development is a major limitation of the school-based approach to inservice education. Neither case studies nor the teacher development literature supports the association of professional learning with a specific site, such as the school. On the contrary, locating the study and practice of…

A study examined the success of the Pennsylvania Department of Education's Exemplary Program Project for Vocational Education in implementing and replicating exemplary vocational education programs, disseminating information about successful programs to local education agencies, and motivating school officials and teachers to develop or replicate…

The purpose of the symposium is to investigate those factors that obstruct and those factors that facilitate the knowledge utilization process for school reform in general and Mastery In Learning Project schools in particular. The Mastery in Learning Project (MILP) is the National Education Association's site-based, faculty-led school reform…

A description is given of an instructional model used effectively in an inservice teacher program on classroom management. Based on pedagogical theory, the model consists of four steps. The initial step involves teachers personally in the problems, issues, and topics addressed by the program. Step two, concept formation, consists of strategies…

The opening section of this paper describes the author's first experience with collegial attempts at curriculum reform through practical inquiry, illustrating a process in which ideas are tested and developed in action. It is pointed out that this form of teacher-based practical inquiry is a characteristic feature of a certain kind of curriculum…

Connections between stereotypical attitudes toward English studies and the apparent lack of integration in curricula and pedagogies make it useful to examine the "process/content debate." Representative voices in this debate have been strident: cultural literacy is paraphrased as expressing that it is not important what can be known, as…

Educators, as applied scientists, must work in partnership with investigative scientists who are researching brain functions in order to reach a better understanding of gifted students and students who are intelligent but do not learn. Improper understanding of brain functions can cause gross errors in educational placement. Until recently, the…

A literary communication model cannot adjudicate the conflicting claims of transformation and enculturation: that literature is intrinsically educational, that it conduces to psychic growth as a process, irrespective of subject matter and free from the dangers of indoctrination, but that the imperative to make it instrumental to political ends…