Author presents suggestions for teaching courses for the first time. Suggestions include the following: be organized, remember basic science processes, study the new content, use what works, structure your lessons, be flexible, learn from students, be creative and willing to try new ideas, capitalize on what you know, seek help from every…

Presents Aurora (Colorado) Public Schools' generic plan for effecting school improvement, which consists of four tools: (1) outcomes-oriented strategic planning; (2) performance-based education to help students achieve learner and content outcomes; (3) performance-based graduation requirements; and (4) shared decision making among the district's…

Explains four theoretical concepts: power, interests, negotiation, and responsibility. Combines them into a theory of program planning that encourages adult educators to nurture a democratic process, taking into account the power relations that support or threaten it. (SK)

Describes a mother's involvement in a school-based management team at her daughter's middle school in Scottsdale, Arizona. The author worked with another parent, five teachers, a classified representative, a student, and a business person. Designed as a policymaking group, the team successfully revised the school mission statement, assessed school…

Provides an assessment tool for day care center directors to distribute to their staff as a means of evaluating the director's leadership style and performance. Includes the survey, directions, and a scoring sheet. The article emphasizes that the director's leadership style is a powerful factor influencing organizational effectiveness. (GLR)

Discusses the need for fundamental restructuring of language arts instruction. Discusses the benefits of the whole-language approach and the current problems with testing, use of instructional time, and the lack of teacher support. (PRA)

Didactic space for education within art museums is explored, and the development of four such areas in the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa) is traced. Evaluation of the resulting Theme Rooms through observations of and interviews with 112 patrons will increase their appeal and potential for education. (SLD)

It is suggested that, in terms of management, the right demands are being made on technology to provide distributed, cost-effective access to knowledge and instruction. Seven guiding principles for evaluating technology and three roles for educators vis-a-vis technology"--evaluator, implementor, and communicator--are enunciated. (CNP)

This article presents a series of steps to help sending and receiving teachers of children with disabilities who are making the transition from preschool to kindergarten. The steps help teachers plan for transition, develop and implement child preparation activities, and integrate preparation activities with existing curricular goals and teaching…

Total quality management fits naturally with service to vocational-technical special needs students. Conception of the institution as a learning organization requires core competencies: shared vision, personal mastery, mental models, team learning, and systems thinking. (JOW)

Research on teacher planning, teachers' interactive decision making, and the relation between teachers' decisions and student outcomes is summarized. A cognitive psychological framework for analyzing teacher thinking is presented and applied to existing research on teacher planning and decision making. (DB)

Uses structuration theory concepts to analyze the disjunction between annual school development plans and a more flexible planning approach effective at the building level. Analyzes concepts, discusses features of local education authority development plans, summarizes relevant research, and suggests unintended consequences of development plans as…

The Canadian Opportunities Strategy, the portion of the Canadian minister of finance's 1998 budget speech devoted to the government's plan for a "knowledge society," is analyzed. The budgetary context in which the strategy was outlined is reviewed, and the strategy itself of the government's investment plan for research and improved…

Describes an outcomes accreditation study of 27 schools, undertaken after the 1985 North Central Association Commission on Schools' (NCA COS) two-year development pilot project on the same subject. Predicts that NCA COS will keep governance of the outcomes process at the local level, with peer review by visiting teams remaining an integral part of…

Discusses the need for the community to support the process and outcome of planning their new schools. Describes how two Cincinnati (Ohio) school districts, one rural and one urban, made it happen. (GR)