This paper presents a "state-of-the-art" in teacher education in the United States. The clinical study of teaching and the rationale for Oklahoma State University's preservice language arts clinical experiences are discussed. A systematically organized structure for the utilization of clinical experiences, the "Teaching…

For the past decade, the federal government has supported comprehensive school reform as a way to improve under-performing schools (US Department of Education 1998). Thousands of schools across the country are now implementing scores of different whole school reform models with the hopes of improving school culture and raising student performance.…

This study investigated the types of preservice training received by Japanese Teachers of English (JTEs) and assistant language teachers (ALTs) before participating in team teaching (TT), also assessing how they described their experiences with TT, the kinds of knowledge and experiences they believed should be included in teacher education,…

The primary purpose of this paper is to illuminate how a school principal employed three identifiable leadership initiatives to support adult learning within the context of her school and to show how her own thinking about her leadership practices on behalf of teacher learning changed and developed over time. A discussion of current efforts to…

GENTRAIN is a modular program for interdisciplinary humanities instruction. The authors recount the development of the program from creating their own textbooks, arranging teaching teams, organizing the vast amount of available material, deciding on class format, to discovering a group of enthusiastic supporters among the community's senior…

This study identified teacher leadership traits and investigated why those leadership traits are important for educators and students at the middle school level. Characteristics of the middle school and the middle school student were explored as well as opportunities for development and enhancement of teacher leadership skills by middle school…

The Computer Attitude Questionnaire (CAQ) is a Likert-type self-report instrument with paired-comparison items added to provide supplemental information. The CAQ is intended for use in the middle school environment, grades six to eight. A 1993 preliminary validation study indicated the instrument's stable measurement qualities and probable…

This paper explores the concept of combining collaborative action research, used in examining teacher behaviors, with group dynamics, used to facilitate new ideas and increase motivation. Specifically, the study examines the effort by one team of middle school teachers to conduct teacher team collaborative research. After reviewing the literature…

This paper explores questions about the ways in which students, teachers, administrators, and parents negotiate new sets of roles and expectations for schooling in the innovative climate of a new middle school. A new school in an Australian city has implemented a coordinated package of approaches including integrated curriculum, portfolio…

Increased interest in interdisciplinary instruction in secondary schools has led to the development of different models. At one school in the Shenandoah Valley (Virginia) three designs evolved when teams of teachers took on nontraditional, integrated instruction as a goal. In general, integrated curriculum designs in secondary schools match one of…

The attitudes of students in ungraded primary and fourth grade classes toward educational-reform changes implemented in their classrooms were studied in Kentucky, using a sample of 53 students from the primary grades and 47 students from the fourth grade. Multi-age, multi-ability grouping, as experienced by these primary students, is a feature of…

Building on previous investigations of the effects of team-organized instructional arrangements on elementary school teachers' sense of autonomy, this report reexamines data from 14 multiunit schools which still retained the team instructional plan at the end of the second year of implementation. Indicators measured were interdependent teaching…

An individualized reading program was designed and implemented in a two-teacher open classroom program for children in grades four, five, and six. This paper describes the following aspects of the program: development of instructional objectives; assessment of pupils' reading behavior through the use of a criterion-referenced reading inventory;…

To help educators continue to refine approaches to nourishing children's imaginations, this bibliography brings together 652 references on alternative school systems. The references are arranged into 17 categories and indexed by subject category and author. The categories include alternative, cooperative, experimental, interdisciplinary, and…

An interdisciplinary futures program was established as part of the core curriculum at Davis and Elkins College to prepare students for the variety of personal and social changes they are likely to experience during their lifetimes. Courses in the program are taught sequentially during each of the undergraduate years. At the freshmen, sophomore,…