Three science educators present their views concerning competency-based teacher education. (PEB)

The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) has influenced the thinking and operations within organizations from all sectors of the American economy. This paper presents the experiences of three faculty members who have used the Criteria for Performance Excellence and the underlying concepts of the MBNQA to enhance the learning experiences…

Attempts to develop a critical thinking model which will teach students to cope effectively with advertising. (RB)

Presents a mechanical analog designed to reduce the conceptual difficulties experienced by many students in thinking about age distribution concepts in demography. (JR)

In teaching adult education classes today the need is no longer for a method of teaching but a method of learning. Classroom procedures should center on the adult student rather than revolve around the teacher. (DS)

This paper presents a general model for conceptualizing and testing the interactions of individual differences and subject-matter characteristics with instructional methods. The model postulates certain ways of classifying the variables of interest in such investigations and of conceptualizing the cause-and-effect relationships among those classes…

The Coach system, a computer simulation of a human tutor, was constructed with the goal of obtaining a better understanding about how a tutor interprets the student's behavior, diagnoses difficulties and gives advice to a student learning a simple computer programming language. Coach is based on a hierarchy of active schemas representing the…

THE REVIEWER FAULTS THE AUTHOR FOR "SIMPLE AND UNCRITICAL PRESENTATIONS OF IDEAS" THAT FAIL TO RESULT IN THE PROMISED "WORKABLE DOCUMENT FOR PRACTICING TEACHER EDUCATORS TO USE." THE MATERIAL "SHOWS SO COMPLETE A LACK OF CONCERN FOR SUCH MATTERS AS WHETHER A MODEL HAS OR HAS NOT BEEN DERIVED FROM EMPIRICAL RESEARCH, WHETHER THE MODEL HAS OR HAS…

A CASE IS MADE FOR CLINICAL RESEARCH AS A 2-WAY STREET BETWEEN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH AND PRACTICE. EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH IS DEFINED AS "THE DEVELOPMENT OF APPROPRIATE TECHNIQUES FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF THE LEARNING PROCESS IN AN EDUCATIONAL SETTING," THUS QUESTIONING THE RELEVANCY OF "BASIC" VS. "APPLIED" THEORIES.…

This paper deals with the systems approach to educational program improvement, which is an approach that allows teacher educators to plan and direct change in a systematic and systemic way. Instead of having to deal with problems one at a time, a systems approach allows one to solve several problems at the same time. This paper focuses on the…

This paper argues that the distinction commonly drawn in freshman composition texts between fact and opinion is functionally worthless and presents students with a useless dichotomy. It is wrong to stress the difference between fact and opinion because it has led to the assumption that there is a style of writing appropriate to the presentation of…

In performance- or competency-based teacher education, the training objectives are behavior skills a teacher may use to produce or enhance learning. One technique used to improve skill development is modeling. The trainee is shown either a live, taped, or written model and then attempts to emulate the example. The student receives immediate…

There are three main reasons why reading research has not had a stronger influence on what goes on in schools. The first reason is the powerful impact of social forces such as the bandwagon effect, the pendulum swing, and the prevailing climate of opinion. These factors determine to an unfortunately large degree whether or not particular research…