A cultural component has been used in one instructor's literature classes at Georgia Perimeter College as a response to Expected Educational Outcome 4 which states: "The students will be exposed to and/or participate in cultural activities, events, and presentations," and to General Education Outcome 3 which states: "The students…

Most educators' ideas about academic discourse and critical thinking are confined by social constructionist assumptions. Working with historical texts, in such a way that these texts empower students to imagine alternative futures, opens up the freshman writing course to three-dimensional critical thinking. Freshmen at one particular college must…

The "new reality" of Australia's involvement with Asia has brought an added urgency to the call for curriculum inclusions that ensure appropriate and positive levels of Australian engagement with countries of the Asian region. This paper discusses the "Delors" report and considers its "Learning To Know, Learning To Do,…

This paper presents common design features of 4 elementary laboratory school classes implementing knowledge building over 1 year. It also explains that the specification and improvement of educational innovations, embedded in the design experiments methodology, is the kind of practice-based research laboratory schools should use in order to make…

The Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) convened the "Symposium on Business and the Liberal Arts: Integrating Professional and Liberal Education" in Chicago in May 2007 out of concern that the proportion of students graduating with degrees in the liberal arts has been declining as preprofessional and technical programs have expanded and the…

A study was conducted to determine if two specific factors had an effect on business teachers' perceptions of barriers to the implementation of a change. The two factors were the type of environment (type of school in which the teacher taught) and whether or not a change was perceived as being new or old. The change was implementation of a…

The "Six-A" innovation model is developed from the theory that innovation is a learning process and not just an event as Fullan (1985, 1991), Beckhard and Harris (1977), Turrill (1986) and many others have advocated. Eleven sections compose this paper. The introduction gives a brief historical review of studies and research on education change.…

This paper presents an overview of anthropological approaches to studying mathematics classrooms, programs, and innovations in schools. Focus is placed on teaching and learning and programs and innovations from an anthropological point of view. An explanation of how the education of cultural groups could be included in these perspectives is also…

This paper examines current standards and procedures used in rope and climbing courses and offers alternatives to standard practices. The techniques and issues covered include belay techniques, belay signals, and the use of the initiative wall. Current techniques are often not the most efficient or even the safest, but they have stood the…

Writing centers have been working diligently to create a centripetal space to draw as many faculty and students into its collaborative learning process as possible. The degree to which writing centers have succeeded in this mission should now lead beyond the sanctum of the centers and even beyond the validated space of satellite centers. The…

First pointing out educational innovations in the public schools of Florida and accomplishments of public schools in general, this address briefly indicates six ways to provide support for effective teachers, discusses "new realities" affecting educational practices, and describes the roles of state and national government in education. (RH)

The dissemination of successful educational innovations has long been a strongly supported policy in educational settings. Recent research developments have led to a debate as to the appropriateness of a centralized versus decentralized dissemination policy. The current research provided a test of the modified Research, Development and Diffusion…

Communication training for health care providers and consumers can help prepare individuals to effectively meet the communicative demands of health care practice. Offering health communication educational programs at several different educational contexts (in elementary and secondary schools, in health care organizations, and in universities,…

Serving as a way to sum up or apply many of the principles students have been studying in a general semantics course, a unit on advertising language is devoted to examining how advertisers select language for its affective and directive uses. The unit shows how language is used to stimulate consumer interest in a product and often to mask the lack…

A study investigated the relationship between shared communication links and the process of organizational innovation in a privately owned medical clinic providing comprehensive medical care to children and adults. Participants were the physicians and physician assistants employed at the clinic. Data were collected through questionnaires before…