This report describes a program to establish a positive school climate. The targeted population consisted of elementary students in a low socioeconomic area. The problems of poor interpersonal skills and inappropriate social behaviors were documented through structured observations, surveys, and school records. Analysis of probable cause data…

Infants and toddlers need to learn a wide range of skills from their parents to prepare them for their experiences outside the home. This guide is designed to provide parents with practical, future-oriented suggestions on raising toddlers and preschool-age children. It provides a step-by-step approach to handling everyday problems, promoting the…

This action research project involved implementation of a program designed to minimize inappropriate student behavior that interfered with instruction. The target populations were students in three third grades in an elementary school, one third grade in an intermediate school, and one eighth grade social studies class in a middle school. All…

This study examined the specific words that college faculty in different disciplines use to convey goals for students using data from 1986-87 interviews with 62 faculty members teaching introductory colleges and a 1988-89 survey of 2105 faculty which established a listing of over 6000 goal statements. Goal statements were examined in order to…

This book argues that the best solution to higher education's conflicts over culture and "political correctness" is to teach the conflicts themselves. The book suggests making intellectual conflict part of the universities' object of study and thereby more successfully engaging students in the world of ideas and learning. The book argues…

A state-wide survey of public attitudes about education in Connecticut conducted by Public Agenda, supplemented by focus groups and a survey of educators and community leaders, suggests that the Connecticut public is ambivalent about support for education and for proposals to integrate the schools. Resistance seems to stem from the public…

Teachers' views on their control of school policy and classroom practices are analyzed on the basis of data from the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) of 1990-91. The SASS, a nationally representative survey of more than 53,000 teachers, reflects teachers' opinions of school conditions. Overall, teachers (61 percent) did not believe that they had…

This booklet, second in a series on issues in assessment, seeks to describe an initiative supported by Finger Lakes Community College (New York) to use classroom assessment techniques (CATs) in different academic areas and to present an overview of some assessment approaches that have been used in the classroom. Papers include: (1) "Enhancing…

This paper describes an elementary school's attempts to give its students a "moral education." The school's program emphasized participation and discussion while stressing rules and principles of cooperation, trust, community, autonomy, and self-reliance. School personnel initiated a more democratic environment by moving the locus of…

Attitudes of Israeli senior faculty concerning research and teaching were evaluated using the Carnegie international questionnaire. Approximately one third of the total faculty population in Israel was randomly sampled, but stratified by institutional size. The questionnaire was sent to 2,225 faculty and 502 returned completed forms (22.56…

This study examined disciplinary differences in college teaching using data from a national study of peer review of teaching to look at values about teaching held by faculty in the contrasting disciplines of history and chemistry. Data for this study were from written exercises completed by faculty participants (14 historians and 12 chemists) and…

This study explored current University of Nebraska graduate course offerings which address content relative to infants, families, and/or the professional teamwork associated with services to handicapped or at-risk infants, toddlers, and their families. Faculty from 12 departments were surveyed as to their interest in interdisciplinary,…

The purpose of this experimental study was to determine the behavioral effects of Yoshukai karate on four dependent variables: (1) student behavior as related to classroom discipline; (2) teacher attitudes toward at-risk students; (3) students' self-concepts; and (4) academic achievement as determined by scores on a standardized diagnostic test.…

The purpose of this paper is to present a brief overview of the nature of pedagogical content knowledge and to offer a list of working hypotheses concerning it for incorporation into teacher education programs. What teachers know about teaching, such as preinstructional strategies, the use of concrete examples and manipulatives, formative testing,…

Views about corporal punishment in schools are changing. Some seek a return to accountability, authority, and increased order in schools, while others seek to make schools a sanctuary from social violence, especially violence against children. Local school boards often are criticized as being too lenient or too severe, and more state legislatures…