At Santa Maria Middle School in southwest Phoenix, Arizona, teachers have decided to maintain their relationships with their students by looping through sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. Here, they describe the results of the first three years of the program, discussing the development of their team's priorities and the strategies they embraced…

Discusses the challenges of making a grade 12 law course come alive. Suggests using oral simulation work such as mock trials, moot courts, and adversarial debates. Illustrates the use of the "Grade A Contract" to keep students on task and promote skill support, and presents an outline of a moot court enactment. (LS)

In its valiant differentiation and detracking efforts, a Virginia high school hoped to assist all students in mastering state standards and enrich, excite, and challenge high-ability students via learning contracts and advanced material feeding their interests. However, disgruntled parents managed to reinstate the tracking system. (MLH)

When budgets are tight, administrators have to find ways to provide and maintain facilities without draining their budgets. Fortunately, advancements in technology, new ideas in construction and design, and savvy management strategies are available that enable schools and universities to spend their money more wisely and efficiently. Here are 10…

The Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA) organized a conference in May 1994 around the theme of assessment for better student learning. The chapters in this collection constitute a selection of the 32 conference presentations. All have been rewritten for this book, although Dary Erwin's chapter (chapter 3) was especially written…

Taking a how-to approach and a British perspective, with numerous lists and examples, this book presents the concept of learning contracts negotiated agreements between learners and instructors to achieve a specific learning goal for university and continuing education teachers. The book is organized in four parts: Part 1 is an introduction; it…

Drawing from experiences at Delaware Technical and Community College (DTCC), these papers discuss the institution's entrepreneurial approach to two aspects of college administration: developing relationships with business and industry, and management planning. Entrepreneurship is defined as the ability to find and evaluate opportunities, locate…

The forms of parent involvement explored by researchers are varied, ranging from parents' encouragement of their children in the home to intense parent-school partnerships in which parents are involved in every aspect of the educational process. This paper summarizes selected studies of parent involvement which fall within the following three…

A technical note on using consultants for learning materials development and production, written for the staff of the Indonesian Directorate of Community Education, outlines procedures for determining the need for consultants, choosing the kind of consultant needed, and working effectively with consultants. What consultants are, and what kinds of…

Vermont has an unusual two-year college system. There is no campus, no full-time faculty, no grades or credits are given, students develop their own performance contracts, non-traditional courses are offered, and life experiences are counted toward a degree. Methods of finance and the lack of a model on which to evaluate success are the major…

This paper addresses the need for tailor-made support services for college students with learning disabilities based on sound diagnostic/prescriptive evaluation data. Literature on program design and the development of effective individualized education programs is reviewed, and performance contracts developed with student input are viewed as…

This working paper presents guidelines for negotiating learning contracts between tutors and postsecondary students enrolled in a vocational program. The first two sections discuss the general rationale for negotiating curricula and the specific benefits of conducting such negotiations with students over the age of 16. Addressed next is the…

This collection of essays discusses ways in which community colleges and proprietary schools have been able to cope with changes in employer and student markets. The collection includes: (1) "Marching to the Market: A New Tune for Training Organizations," by Wellford W. Wilms; (2) "California's Employment Training Panel: Creating Incentives for…

An alternate learning experience for senior, baccalaureate-level nursing students enrolled in the Practicum in Nursing Leadership at East Carolina University School of Nursing is described. The major objective of this course is to help students develop leadership skills. During the first half of the semester the students, who are registered…

Changes in instructional methods and evaluative criteria in the University of Delaware's baccalaureate degree medical technology curriculum include contract courses with stated behavioral objectives. (MW)