Schools are to prepare students for success. However, they often villainize failure. Instead, schools should teach students how to fail fast and safely in order to learn and to allow innovation through vulnerability. The lessons that the gaming culture has for learning will define future strategies of teaching and learning. Games are sometimes…

This paper discusses the life and accomplishments of Harriet Quimby, a Michigan woman who was an aviation pioneer (the first licensed woman pilot in 1911) and yet who is largely unknown. The paper appears in conjunction with a biography of Quimby aimed at intermediate students. The paper gives a dramatic account of Quimby's flight across the…

In 1993, the Michigan legislature passed a bill that allowed school districts to adopt early elementary school program initiatives. These initiatives established nongraded, continuous progress programs for grades 1 through 4. An overview of how the state coordinator helped school districts implement this multiage, nongraded model is presented in…

Educators concerned with effectiveness outcomes have become increasingly involved with participative organizational and teaching practices designed to improve school climate. Since schools have traditionally emphasized "top down" management and decision-making procedures, few school districts have the experience or expertise to develop…

This paper describes an extended school year (ESY) project that was developed and implemented cooperatively by three Michigan school districts and offers comments and suggestions for school administrators considering adoption of such a program. In the Michigan ESY project, the normal school year was divided into four terms of nine weeks each, and…

This paper describes the experiences of first grade students as they are introduced to inquiry experiences and begin to develop skills and dispositions conducive to the practice of scientific literacy. The Guided Inquiry Instruction on light was the culmination of seven months of the teacher's professional development experiences in an orientation…

Beginning in 1995, the Michigan Department of Education sponsored pilot projects at the state's community colleges to develop curricular learning models and/or courses that integrate liberal arts or general education into vocational programs, identify and document faculty collaboration between liberal arts and occupational programs, and determine…

Western Michigan University (WMU) in Kalamazoo, Michigan, has partnered with Michigan community colleges to develop an occupational education studies (OES) program to prepare future career and technical education (CTE) instructors by allowing students to transfer their technical degree from the community college as their teaching major at the…