This paper focuses on the difficulties of assessing multi-year team projects, in which a team of students drawn from all three years of a full-time degree course works on a problem with and for a real-life organization. Although potential solutions to the problem of assessing team projects may be context-dependent, we believe that discussing these…

This paper provides a synthesis of the literature on the role of benchmarking, with a focus on its use in the public sector. Benchmarking is discussed in the context of quality systems, of which it is an important component. The paper describes the basic types of benchmarking, pertinent research about its application in the public sector, the…

Thirteen school districts, a regional training network, and a university in Florida formed a partnership to develop support for the implementation of the statewide plan, "Blueprint 2000." Funded by the Florida Department of Education, the partnership used a quality and systems framework for helping the schools and districts in their restructuring…

In the summer of 1993, more that 55 educators from across the United States attended The Institute for Learning and Teaching (TILT) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge (Massachusetts). Teachers, school administrators, and their champions in the community joined MIT students, professors, and professionals from…

Traditional views of critical thinking instruction focus on teaching students to develop skeptical responses to the texts they read. Genuinely powerful and generative forms of critical thinking, however, require students to read creatively as well. To balance the rigor of analysis and exorbitance of creativity, a freshman honors seminar was…

Andersen Consulting is a global training firm with more than 20,000 consultants serving clients from 151 officers in 46 countries. In 1995, Andersen Consulting introduced a career development model (CDM) as a new organizing structure for its consultants in North and South America. The CDM, which translates the findings of research on integrative…

These five papers are from a symposium that was facilitated by Michael Leimbach at the 1995 conference of the Academy of Human Resource Development (HRD). "Developing Systems Thinking Ability in Organizations" (Carol Ann Zulauf) reports a study that examined the relationship between cognitive complexity, locus of control, and selected…

Given the current social and economic changes, American education must change in order to connect students to the future. This book is comprised of a collection of essays on the topic of systemic change in education. The book focuses on reform for the future by bringing together systems theory with detailed examples of strategies and cases that…

Student self-concept represents a newly emerging and extremely important field of study for instructors and classroom facilitators. This paper presents studies and theories investigating self-concept as a significant factor in the classroom. Self-concept is deeply imbedded in intrapersonal, perception, and interpersonal communication. In order to…

Statewide learner competency and assessment systems in 11 states were examined. Information was gathered through telephone interviews and a review of materials on the learner competency and assessment systems being used/developed in each state. Special attention was paid to the states' activities regarding development of the following: systematic…

This paper, which is intended for individuals responsible for information management at British further education (FE) colleges, describes the attempts by a number of FE institutions to manage their information effectively and provides guidelines for FE institutions to follow when developing their own information management strategy. After a brief…

This paper reports on changes in the practicum component of a teacher education program, designed to provide experiences related to the systemic functions of schools. The practicum evolved from genuine collaboration between a school and a university to share responsibility for preservice preparation. The program involved having the teacher…

The drive for systemic reform in education reflects a widespread hunger in all sectors of society to make sense of the whole, as is shown in the increasing recognition of people in organizations of the interrelatedness of the organizations' parts. However, many attempts at systemic reform are hampered by the lack of a common view of what an…

Because the quality management (QM) movement can be very important in school improvement efforts, it is essential to determine how QM can fit with relatively new restructuring ideas and whether this approach is consistent with existing school structures and processes. This book presents an integrated approach to holistic quality management that…

This monograph explains the community-based systems of care approach to providing services for children and youth with emotional disorders and reviews data from 30 communities suggesting that children served in systems of care are less likely to receive services in restrictive environments or to be placed out of their homes, counties, and states.…