The push for academic electives has grown over the years for many reasons. The pressure for high test scores has forced schools to focus on literacy and core content areas. The competition for entrance to four-year universities has grown, too. However, in the race to improve academic offerings and raise test scores, some schools have neglected to…

"Curriculum alignment projects, towards developing a need to know", presents an approach to curriculum design that could be considered truly constructive in its format. Successful completion of the project requires students to synthesize a number of concepts that make up the block's learning objectives.

This article proposes a reconsideration of curricular objectives with respect to the teaching of culture, in the interest of broadening the humanistic scope of the second/foreign language curriculum while at the same time alleviating the pressure of a typically over-extended instructional agenda. Recent research and theory support a relational…

The purpose of this paper is to explore another facet of visual literacy--technical visual communication (TVC)--and to discuss how this new perspective can further strengthen visual literacy as a discipline. Unlike visual literacy, which looks to a desirable state of affairs, TVC addresses the nature of actual visual communication. Both visual…

This presentation deals with the topic of ethnic/racial identity development, acknowledging the importance of recognizing the multicultural component in identity formation. The literature has pointed to several areas that are central to effective prejudice-prevention and prejudice-reduction programming, among them an emphasis on cognitive…

Early childhood education has always been considered important in Korea, with the education of the child valued highly, regardless of the parent's educational background or socioeconomic status. The main social facility for early childhood education outside home in Korea is called "Yoo Chee Won," which means kindergarten. This paper…

Resisting the notion that there is a single English language arts curriculum that all schools can or should follow, this book focuses on processes for designing, implementing, and evaluating curriculums suited to the needs of individual schools and students. Part 1 of the book (The English Language Arts Curriculum in the 1990s), provides the…

In July 1989, the Tacoma Board of Directors adopted a 5-year strategic educational plan, which included a curriculum strategy and action plan. A 6-year curriculum adoption cycle was proposed during the 1989-90 school year, and an audit of current procedures for developing and implementing curriculum was conducted in 1991. This report describes the…

The Upside Down Tree Design (UDT) shows how teachers can use curriculum planning to improve academic standards. UDT employs the "design down" approach, where the design of the curriculum is arranged down from the general to the specific, but the delivery of the curriculum is presented up from specific to the general. The text explores…

Issues concerning language learning strategies instruction are discussed, and its use in second language education in Japan is encouraged. It is argued that language learning strategies, largely ignored in Japanese education, are useful but can only be realized by complementing the second language curriculum. The learning strategies concept is…

Young children often have difficulty with understanding money in a formal school setting, yet most mathematics textbooks are virtually identical in how they teach second graders about money and do not take into account the cognitive stages of children's development. This research examined the effectiveness of traditional and alternative classroom…

The paper looks at traditional curriculum implementation strategies, claiming that they have been divided into two polarized perspectives: fidelity implementation and adaptive implementation. These two implementation perspectives have dominated contemporary curriculum textbooks. The paper suggests that curriculum implementation as a field of study…

The Curriculum Inquiry Cycle is a professional development process that supports educators as they match curriculum and instruction to state standards, local needs, and student characteristics. Ways in which to implement this cycle are provided in this booklet. There are four phases in the cycle: examining current practice, making decisions,…

An educational program's characteristics are one of the main factors influencing the number of square feet needed per student. Listed are some initial questions facility planners can ask to help guide the facility design process with the educational program in mind. (GR)

This paper discusses the notion of experiential learning, described as an effort to foster the development of the learner as both a person and a language user. Definitions and discussions of implementation strategies for experiential language learning are provided, followed by an examination of ways in which the linguistic content of a course can…