Chinese researchers investigated how mathematics teachers in two elementary schools in northeast China adapted the national curriculum. One school was in a very poor, mountainous area, and the other school was in a very large city. Both used the national curriculum and the same set of teaching materials. Researchers used ethnographic methods to…

This study examined the Model Education Center (MEC) Professional Development School (PDS), formed by San Diego State University and a nearby school district in 1984. The study investigated whether core beliefs embedded in the PDS had a lasting effect on the teachers it graduated. Participants included teachers at three target schools; teachers…

Advocates teaching constitutional history and principles to middle school students in accordance with the 1988 California History-Social Science Framework. Reports findings of a survey of 118 California middle school and high school teachers that revealed a need for improved teacher knowledge about the U.S. Constitution. Recommends steps to ensure…

The persistent reading struggles and failure of nearly 40 percent of all American children, little improved over time, has led to aggressive government-funded efforts in school districts to train veteran teachers in the science of reading. The accumulated scientific findings of nearly 60 years of research gained the nation's attention with the…

This paper presents an overview of the inservice model used by the National Science Foundation supported Project INLAB (Integrating Laboratory Instruction and Assessment) to challenge and change science teachers' laboratory instruction and assessment practice. The framework that guides the instructional strategies and activities of INLAB is based…

A study was conducted to determine the effects of the formal evaluation process (FEP) of two- and four-year college faculty on instructional improvement. A questionnaire was mailed to a random sample of 250 tenured faculty representing five colleges and universities. Respondents were asked to indicate whether three segments of the FEP (i.e.,…

Educational research has been meeting resistance in its effort to influence curricular policy or to change classroom practice because of the lack of value placed on it by those who exercise power over and in higher institutions of learning. In order to counteract this resistance it is important to identify those predisposed to effect change in the…

A survey was conducted to determine the needs of elementary teachers with respect to the teaching of science. Areas addressed in the survey included: biological, physical, and earth science topics taught at various grade levels; criteria used to select sequencing and content of the science curriculum; most common methods of instruction used in the…

The Biological Science Curriculum Study with support from others conducted a three-year project (ENLIST Micros II) to develop and test a model for implementing educational computing in science courses. Descriptive data on background characteristics, prior experience with microcomputers, and educational level of the leaders and new participants was…

The 3-year project reported in the first chapter of this document addressed factors which affect the scholarly research and publication productivity of women faculty in minority institutions, specifically women in science/science education from colleges affiliated with the Alabama Center for Higher Education. The project was conceived, reviewed,…

This study attempts to evaluate the effects of special training for collegial supervision under the conditions of two types of organization development (OD) training within the multiunit school. The first type of OD intervention involved training for all the staff members of a multiunit school. The second was called group development (GD) and…

A study was conducted at Miami-Dade Community College (Florida) that involved: (1) establishing 14 objectives for a general education art course; (2) pre-testing 471 students enrolled in the course using an instrument referenced to these objectives; (3) conducting individual conferences with four instructors of the course to assist them in…

A dramatic increase in faculty development efforts at Cayuga County Community College (Auburn, New York) followed a change in administration. The three kinds of faculty improvement programs available were: (1) faculty participation projects such as workshops and seminars on professional growth (there were five during 1978); (2) instructional…

The document presents reports of Summer Resource Personnel Workshops held at the University of Minnesota, Morris, Minnesota, in 1972, 1973, 1974, and 1975 to improve precollegiate social science education. Objectives of the workshops were to train educators as resource personnel; implement and disseminate projects in anthropology, geography, and…

A number of problems confronting the foreign language teacher in the secondary school classroom are discussed, and strategies (not necessarily solutions) are offered for coping with them. Problems were selected on the basis of the authors' experiences as state supervisors and as a result of letters of inquiry to classroom teachers and local and…