This report describes Head Start classroom activity, contains data on the children from a testing program, and includes teacher ratings of pupils on a Classroom Adjustment Checklist. (Individual data is being preserved for follow-up studies.) Classroom observations were made in 13 of 27 Head Start classrooms, while testing activities and teacher…

At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the Instructional Staff Development Program, Component VI, Developing/Modifying Student Affective Behaviors focuses upon some affective behaviors that promote and are considered vital to the inquiry process. Through teachers trained in the development of affective behaviors, this program has achieved changes…

Four conceptual competencies were devised and deemed necessary for effective teaching. Then, a number of conclusions were drawn: a) with new competencies being stated, new forms of training must be established; b) training which occurs at the undergraduate level can be made more effective only if the statement of competencies is more realistic; c)…

Factor analyses of 1,359 Teacher Concerns Statements (TCS) indicate a single bipolar factor best describes preservice teachers' concerns, the poles being self-adequacy and teaching performance. Two concerns factors are required to describe inservice teachers' concerns: self-adequacy vs. pupil-benefit (bipolar), and teaching performance. Thus, the…

The objective of the project was to unify the efforts of the classroom teacher and the college faculty in observing and guiding the teacher trainee in classroom teaching practice. Two coding systems, one on teacher behavior and one on pupil behavior, were used to establish a common language for professional dialogue on description of and…

This booklet presents a discussion of some moral and philosophical aspects of issues in early childhood education, beginning with a look at the development of Project Head Start. Current educational research is interpreted and distinctions are made between academic and intellectual goals, between achieving and learning, between performing and…

Critiques of the Rosenthal research on experimenter bias and teacher expectancy have demonstrated that few, if any, conclusions can be drawn from it. From other research concerning the factors in and effects of teacher expectancy, it appears that elementary school children make accurate perceptions of subtle affective and cognitive behaviors of…

A nursery school teacher received three types of training in self-observation skills, which were compared with regard to their effects on the accuracy of the self-observations. Minimal training consisted of a brief description of the behaviors to be recorded. The feedback condition incorporated daily information about the accuracy of the…

The purpose of this study was to examine the classroom questions of teachers of science, English and social studies and to determine whether the frequency and types of questions were related to changes in pupil critical thinking. The author hypothesized science teachers would ask more questions and higher level questions than teachers of English…

The first stage of self-concept development concerns the parents' treatment of the child. Parents are advised to be accepting and supportive of children, particularly toddlers. Punishment and repression of toddlers' curiosity has deleterious effects on their emotional development. The second critical variable in establishing a sense of self…

A basic quality of the open classroom is that children are encouraged to make choices. Psychological rationales for allowing children to make choices are taken from psychological theory: (1) the objective of education, stated by Piaget and others, is to develop creative and independent thinkers; (2) children are intrinsically motivated to learn:…

The school, often inadvertently and unconsciously, subordinates ethnic and racial minorities. School mechanisms have developed which tend to support ethnic isolation, perpetuate stereotyping and other myths, and in manifold ways differentially treat minorities. School segregation, ability grouping, student fees, and curricular or extracurricular…

This study was designed to identify stable and meaningful aspects of teaching behavior pertaining to the individualization of instruction in special classes for the retarded. Ten predominantly urban classes for intermediate educable mentally retarded pupils were selected from the total of 32 such classes in a large city. These classes were…

Role consensus is the extent to which agreement exists among the individuals in a group, between groups, or between cities. In three markedly different communities, teachers, principals, superintendents, school boards, and citizens were surveyed for their views on 45 norm items pertaining to the role of the elementary school teacher. Within each…

This document reports on an observation instrument and data obtained over 2 years as part of the national evaluation of project Follow Through. Data was collected from 70 kindergarten and first grade classrooms involved 7 different experimental programs and including 2 comparison (control) classrooms. The primary instrument used to measure teacher…