A survey of nursing leaders was conducted to identify values, opinions and ideas about the baccalaureate nursing curriculum, and the views identified were analyzed from the perspective of curriculum theory. The population consisted of 488 registered nurses listed in the 1985 Directory of Fellows of the American Academy of Nursing. Data were…

This chapter discusses General Systems Theory as it applies to education, classrooms, innovations, and instructional design. The principles of equifinality, open and closed systems, the individual as the key system, hierarchical structures, optimization, stability, cooperation, and competition are discussed, and their relationship to instructional…

Designed for use in preservice and inservice teacher education courses, this document focuses on the development of social studies curriculum. Chapter 1 provides information about recent trends in elementary level social studies. The value and development of resource and teaching units and lesson plans are emphasized in chapter 2, while chapter 3…

Three contributions to a panel discussion on writing-across-the-curriculum at Kapiolani Community College (KCC) are presented. First, "Why Writing-Across-the-Curriculum: Background and Context," by Caroline Nakamura, reviews programs offered across the country, discusses the need for such programs given the decline in students' writing…

The American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) has been instrumental in internationalizing the accounting curriculum by means of accreditation requirements and standards. Colleges and universities have met the AACSB requirements either by providing separate international accounting courses or by integrating international topics…

The design and implementation of Great Britain's Technical and Vocational Education Initiative (TVEI) provides an opportunity to synthesize planning within a curriculum framework that is common to all learners aged 14-18. It can provide a focus for strategic planning in which learners come first. The process of designing curriculum entitlement…

This ERIC Digest explores issues connected with AIDS/HIV education in public K-12 education by addressing five concerns: (1) Why are teenagers at risk? (2) What should be taught when? (3) Who should teach it and in what department? (4) How should teacher training prepare teachers to handle classroom, inservice, and community outreach HIV…

A discussion focusing on whether American Sign Language (ASL) should be accepted in fulfillment of university foreign language requirements attempts to dispel misconceptions about the language; and to show that ASL can provide the same benefits as the study of more traditional foreign languages, including the opportunity to communicate in another…

A case study examined how the adult student population redefines the subject of freshman composition; whether familiarity with the traditional student population makes the academic world oblivious to cognitive differences and/or separate learning needs among adult students; and whether the current pedagogy is responsive to the needs of adult…

In designing a course for teaching English as a second language, it is imperative for a curriculum planner to know the present academic attainment and the desired level of performance of the students at the end of the course. The curriculum planner must take sociological, linguistic, psychological and pedagogical factors into consideration. The…

Through numerous contributions from the field of linguistics, a modified language arts curriculum has resulted. Language arts teachers need to be thoroughly versed in content and methodology recommendations made by linguists. One such recommendation, for example, is that students should understand sentence patterns in English. These patterns…

This article addresses how to integrate social history with political history to create today's U.S. history curriculum that will satisfy new U.S. citizens' need to receive instruction in their own ethnic past. One approach is to present U.S. history as a history of social relations among various ethnic groups and to stress the common legacy of…

This article reviews the Association of American Colleges' (AAC) report titled "Integrity in the College Curriculum: A Report to the Academic Community" in terms of its relevance to political science instruction at the undergraduate level. The report examines two issues: (1) political science as a core component of a general education curriculum;…

A compilation of five documents defines and explores the role, scope, reforms, and current trends in history teaching in Hungary. Ivan Berend in "Educational Ideas and History," considers whether or not the traditional uses of historical knowledge have become obsolete and examines the value of this knowledge in today's society. Peter…

A policy decision taken at Michigan State's College of Education profoundly changed the nature and orientation of the elementary social studies methods courses taught. It was decided that the college would move from a relatively monolithic program to offering incoming students a choice of alternate programmatic routes to certification.…