Ideas for the development of creative exploration in mathematics are offered, including games to play in class (e.g., card games and tangrams), competitions (sample problems), clubs and math evenings (math relays and treasure hunts), projects (possible topics in patchwork quilting, art, and music), and math camps. (DB)

In Australia, education is expected to serve national and international market economies and is being steered by market forces within and beyond education. Recent forms of education markets raise social-justice issues inadequately treated in literature. Markets operate according to profit motive and are not premised on equality or fairness…

John E. Chubb and Terry M. Moe's booklet "A Lesson in School Reform from Great Britain (Brookings, 1992) and Denis Lawton's book "Education and Politics in the 1990s: Conflict or Consensus?" (Falmer, 1992) attempt to evaluate effects of recent educational changes in England and Wales. Lawton's thoughtful, scholarly analysis of the…

Alfie Kohn seems ill-informed about Total Quality Management's educational benefits. Students have always been workers; what is changing is the nature of that work. In schools of quality, teachers and students learn together as they create collaborative, trusting environments where failure is but a temporary step on the road to continuous…

Six-year-old children were paired according to sociometric status and observed in limited-resource play situations. Their responses were coded in terms of focus on their own concerns or those of the other child. Low status dyads adopted a competitive stance more than high status dyads, who focused more on mutual benefit. (BC)

Higher education is under pressure to create a workforce making the United States more competitive internationally. Demographic and workforce influences are shaping teaching, support services and management. Colleges and universities should increase quality, use of technology and communications, and labor productivity and efficiency, and reduce…

The Competitiveness Questionnaire (CQ) was constructed to measure two competitiveness perspectives, Interpersonal Competitiveness and Goal Competitiveness. Initial version of CQ was administered to 94 college students; revised version was administered to 195 students. Findings provide some evidence for construct of Goal Competitiveness and for its…

Reviews the literature, as it relates to American Indian students, on cooperative learning, competition, learning styles, teacher-student interactional styles, peer influence, and the effects of cooperative versus competitive learning on academic achievement. Discusses Student Team Learning techniques. Contains 31 references. (SV)

Summarized are the contests, schedules, entertainment, and planning involved in this activity. Sample topics and questions for the events are provided. Costs, personnel, and time required to put on the event are discussed. (CW)

The dean of MIT's Sloan School of Management, Lester Thurow, is a world-class economist and author of books advocating the need for a more competitive U.S. economy. The United States is the only industrial country lacking a postsecondary education system for noncollege bound students. In a world economy, student quality matters more than natural…

Describes the history, tasks, conditions, and problems of the Soviet Union's Biological Olympiads. (PR)

In search of increased support for graduate students in plant science and upgraded laboratories, the College of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of California Berkeley, offered the college's expertise in exchange for major financial backing from the single company making the best offer. The resulting five-year, $25-million alliance with one…

Four key reasons underlie the push for teacher union solidarity in 1998: desire to fulfill Al Shanker's dream of a unified mission, to end union competition, to bolster Democratic Party weaknesses, and to stop privatization. The NEA/AFT merger failed because of conflicting organizational cultures and teachers' gradualist, localist, and…

Canadian universities now have the fastest research network backbone in the world, CA*Net 3, claiming it can transmit the contents of the Library of Congress in one second. In the United States, network officials feel that their competing Internet2 project supports more research into new network applications than the Canadian project. CA*Net 3…

Describes the Jerusalem Film Center and the background, history, and organization of the Wim Van Leer Competition which was established for young filmmakers in high school. Describes the Jerusalem Film Festival, film studies programs at Israeli high schools, and future possibilities. (Author/LRW)