The traditional education system is designed around time rather than learning, with a one-size-fits-all curriculum and students moving on after a set amount of time regardless of what or how much they have learned. Educators must rethink how time plays a role in education and instead put attention on student mastery, ensuring each student gets the…

For decades, students have been encouraged to use "Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally" as a means of learning the order of operations. Teachers unfamiliar with the Aunt Sally mnemonic are perhaps more familiar with a mnemonic such as PEMDAS. Each mnemonic is intended to convey "parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division,…

This paper focuses on engaging and enabling educators to play new roles and take new leadership in the paradigm shift between traditional and competency-based education: a system of learning designed to ensure that all learners are prepared with the knowledge, skills and dispositions to be successful lifelong learners. The paper re-envisions…

This document is intended to help teachers understand and create Student Learning Objectives (SLOs). This resource is a practical guide intended to provide clarity to a complex but worthwhile task. This resource may also be used by administrators for professional learning. As Utah moves toward providing a "Model for Measuring Educator…

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) initiatives represent an extensive and expanding movement across American education. Nationally, funding for K-12 STEM programs increased from $700 million to almost $1 billion from 2005 to 2007 alone (US DOE, Report of the Academic Competitiveness Council, 2007, p. 51). Although there is a…

This secondary core curriculum is written to communicate what students are expected to know and be able to do in social studies in the state of Utah. Students are expected to become active, responsible, concerned, and knowledgeable citizens. To achieve this purpose, the social studies program requires the acquisition of a social studies knowledge…

This document presents the core science curriculum standards which must be completed by all students as a requisite for graduation from Utah's secondary schools. Contained within are the elementary and secondary school program of studies and high school graduation requirements. Each course entry for grades 7-12 contains: course title, unit of…

The social studies core curriculum presented in this guide represents those standards of learning that are essential for all grade 7-12 students in the state of Utah. For each secondary social studies course, core standards are established, as well as the objectives that should be used to meet the standards. The following courses are covered for…

Intended for elementary, secondary, and college level teachers of Asian studies, this directory describes resources on Asia. The directory has two major sections. The first section describes "National Resources." Included are professional organizations, resource guides and bibliographies, periodicals, and film guides and sources.…

This Utah state curriculum guide calls for one 7-8th grade course (0.5 unit) of visual arts education to fulfill the visual arts Component requirement of the core curriculum. Up to three visual arts courses may be taken at the 9-12th grades as fulfillment of the 1.5 core art units required. Core options include courses in ceramics, jewelry,…

This guide to education concerning Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) contends that schools as community agencies must help students learn to make rational decisions which will result in responsible behavior benefitting themselves and the groups in which they live. The guide presents the standards and objectives for AIDS information which…

This guide is designed to help ease the educational maze in relation to attention deficit disorder (ADD) and its impact on Utah students. The guide begins with a history of ADD as a medical condition. The report then defines ADD, lists diagnostic criteria, and reviews developments in basic research concerning causes of ADD. A section on special…

This Utah State curriculum guide specifies social studies core curriculum standards that must be completed by all K-12 students in order to meet Utah graduation requirements. The core curriculum is intended to represent ideas, concepts, and skills that provide a basic social studies foundation upon which subsequent learnings may be built. An…

In 1984, the Utah legislature enacted a career ladder bill encouraging all local districts to develop plans for restructuring teachers' compensation and promotion options. An independent, bipartisan taskforce then created a statewide, decentralized model that increases educators' power, minimizes merit and staff differentiation, and fosters…

Small, sometimes multi-cultural, rural schools need specialized preservice teacher education programs to prepare teachers. After outlining the classroom, school, and sociocultural characteristics affecting a teacher's success and survival in a rural community, this paper discusses the apparent lack of rural content in teacher preparation programs…