The educational delivery system in the United States has matured, and investing more funds in the current system will have no effect in terms of effectively training students for tomorrow's society. Among the shortcomings of the current delivery system are limited individual instruction, inconsistent quality of presentation, limits of the teacher…

What reading consultants do varies considerably from person to person as there is variability in the role each reading consultant perceives as his or her responsibility. To assist reading consultants in prioritizing their roles to meet their constituents' needs, 113 elementary teachers enrolled in graduate reading classes at the University of…

This chapter considers the social and cultural implications of instructional development, and suggests that the success or failure of a project can best be predicted from improvements in relevant social analysis combined with a competent technical analysis, rather than formal analytic and evaluative analyses alone. Recent developments in the…

Six instructional units offer guidance in the process of writing printed educational materials. Each unit provides objectives, writing exercises and activities, and end-of-unit discussion questions. Unit 1 considers the first steps in writing, emphasizing the importance of varying instruction according to student needs and background and…

This report provides a brief description of a 1986 conference on distance education together with four of the papers presented by the five keynote speakers; an outline of the fifth paper is included. It is noted that, in addition to these papers, the conference included 26 application sessions which allowed the 183 participants to select issues…

This paper illustrates how theoretical research and development of an innovative instructional approach have been successfully integrated with teacher training and classroom implementation. This approach, called "Complex Instruction", was designed to facilitate the development of cognitive, academic, and linguistic functioning of all students in…

Provided in this guide are workshop materials which present an overview of the kindergarten curriculum and provide designs for transparencies for use in instruction. The overview discusses: (1) areas of learning in the kindergarten, including learning of knowledge, skills, dispositions (i.e., attitudinal habits), and language; (2) intellectual…

This practicum report documents the development of a four-lesson multimedia program for robotics instruction for fourth and seventh grade students. The commercial film "Robot Revolution" and the videocassette tape "Robotics" were used, along with two author-developed slide/audiotape presentations and 14 overhead transparency foils. Two robots,…

A sequel to the booklet "How Games and Simulations Can Be Used in Tertiary Education," this booklet begins by looking at ways in which participative exercises of the game/simulation/case study type can be used by teachers and trainers working in further and higher education. A process for the identification of a clearly-defined need for…

A self-instructional slide/tape program entitled "Idiopathic Scoliosis: Guide for Teaching Parents, Children and Health Care Personnel" was created for an audience of nurse-trainees, physicians, and laypeople in British Columbia, Canada. Designed to assist these groups in understanding the nature, history, and treatment of the disease,…

In this paper, research on teachers' judgments, instructional planning, and decision making during classroom interaction is reviewed. Research studies chosen for this paper were selected on the basis of two fundamental assumptions: (1) Teachers behave reasonably in making judgments and decisions; and (2) Their behaviors are guided by their…

Strategic planning is a critical part of sustaining distance education. Through such planning, the organization can solve business problems that involve training and education in an effective and often cost savings manner compared to in-person training efforts. This paper examines the strategic planning process as it relates to sustaining distance…

Since attention to the issue of writing assessment is new, research and theory are described as still widely scattered among fields of inquiry and differing perspectives. The integration of available knowledge into a viable framework is recommended to prescribe current practice and determine future research. In a domain-referenced view of…

This document contains three papers from the Test Use Project of the Center for the Study of Evaluation. A preliminary assessment model is described in the first paper, "Contextual Examination of Test Use: The Test, the Setting, the Cost" by J. Herman and J. Yeh. Empirical findings are sought about the nature of testing and its actual…

This report is arranged to display and explain the work of the Evaluation Design Project staff during the 1980-81 grant year. The intent of the entire project is to examine existing district policies, procedures and programs that appear to contribute to systematic use of evaluation and testing for educational improvement, and to make…