To determine whether self-report psychological inventories could be used to better understand characters in literature, a psychology instructor and an English instructor arranged their courses so that they both focused on interpersonal relationships. The psychology course emphasized research on attraction, romantic love, and interpersonal…

Montclair (New Jersey) State College sought to develop a structure that would facilitate the strengthening of humanistic perspectives in its students and would enable students to see the connections between their academic studies and the complex aspects of the meaning of being human in a world that is increasingly fragmented. Six pairs of faculty…

A study examined the relationships between the motivational variables of self-efficacy (the belief that one is capable of performing effectively) and outcome expectancies (contingency or causal dependency between actions and results) and performance in reading and writing. Subjects, 153 college students, completed measures of self-efficacy for…

Noting the general agreement among reading authorities that one of the most effective methods of encouraging children to read comes from exposing them to children's literature and related activities, this paper presents an extensive literature review of materials dealing with the subject. Following an introductory section that details the goals…

Focusing on the use of popular magazines in interpersonal communication instruction, this paper argues that such magazines can provide a rich source for application and criticism of interpersonal communication processes in everyday life. The first section of the paper reviews research and criticism dealing with the content of magazine articles…

This document describes teaching techniques that vocational and academic teachers can use jointly to improve students' basic skills. It is part of BASICS, a package of integrated materials developed to assist teachers, administrators, and counselors in bridging vocational and academic skills. Section 1 focuses on the problem of students' basic…

This collection of nutrition lessons has been produced so that junior high school teachers of various subject areas may offer an occasional lesson on a nutrition topic. The objectives of each nutrition lesson are consistent with concepts which the Nutrition Education and Training Program in Illinois has identified as the most important nutrition…

If students are first taught writing as experience, then become aware of the intellectual and imaginative operations they use to shape that experience, they will be better able to manage the thinking and writing tasks of the various academic disciplines and of the world of work. This is the purpose of a proposed upper-level writing course that…

Student congress is a speech activity in which students act as a legislative assembly, write and debate bills, and learn parliamentary procedure. It allows the teacher to make points about advocacy, ethics in persuasion, contemporary issues, and the workings of a democracy at the same time that students develop a feeling of control and mastery,…

Having students adapt a play from a strongly dramatic short story through the composing process is a natural and powerful way to integrate the language arts. Using dramatic activities in the classroom naturally leads to two kinds of language activities: receptive (listening and observing), and active (discussing, reading, writing, and presenting).…

A number of laboratory studies have addressed the question of how people integrate different pieces of information to form an overall evaluative judgment. Models of information integration, i.e., the adding model and the averaging model, were tested by gathering questionnaire data from 233 respondents in 17 groups who were expected to vary in…

In Luxembourg, children learn to read in two languages beyond their native Luxemburgish. Beginning in the first grade, children start on German, and in second grade, they begin the study of French and continue to study the two languages intensively throughout the elementary school years. How do elementary school teachers approach such a formidable…

Transformational leadership, an innovative learning model, grows out of the recognition that the learner's coordinate system is influenced by a variety of time, place, and person variables. The concept of a tetradigm, which graphically illustrates this model, is symbolized by an equilateral triangle within a larger equilateral triangle with the…

In a rapidly changing world, schools need to reorient their curricula to ensure adequate preparation of children for the future. Among the fundamental changes affecting society are the diversification of lifestyles, the development of genetic engineering, trends toward automation, and the information explosion. The educational crisis reflects…

A handbook designed to explain the educational approach and outcomes of a year-long arts program which integrated art gallery tours with poetry writing is divided into four sections. Section 1, "Abstracts of the Evaluation" presents an overview of the philosophy of the program, background and organization, the participatory gallery tour which…