The "ISSS Annual Conference Proceedings" is a peer-reviewed professional publication published once a year following the annual conference. The following papers are included in the 2013 proceedings: (1) Teaching About Asia in a Social Science Education Program (Cyndi Mottola Poole and Joshua L. Kenna); (2) Teaching Students about…

In 1991, the Flemish Ministry of Education enacted a radical reorganization and rethinking of the education inspectorate in Flanders. Presenting an overview of this change, this paper reports on research that evaluated the effects of the 1991 decree regarding inspection funding. It focuses on the ways schools reacted to and made use of facilities…

There is a need for reform of the structures and processes by which graduate students turn into professors, and reform of the way academic work is defined and rewarded. A respect for the science and art of teaching as an intellectual field should be fostered in college faculty. Pedagogy is undervalued because most scholarship in pedagogy has…

Three major purposes comprise the focus of this study. First, it determined the perceptions of Alabama public school principals regarding the degree of importance and extent of implementation of 21 specific educational reform recommendations from 7 major national reform proposals issued in 1983. Second, it discovered the perceptions of these same…

Georgia is demonstrating a strong commitment to improving the quality of public education. This paper focuses on the reform efforts in the areas of accountability and the improvement of teaching. This is being accomplished with the current implementation of the Teacher Performance Appraisal Instrument (TPAI) that involves assessing competency in…

Predominant in a list of the problems and predictions for education in general and speech communication education in particular for tbe next 50 years are both the changing form and function of the educator. A scenario of education in 2030 includes a nationwide teacher agreement that results in the release of students from mandatory attendance at…

This report presents the methodology and some of the results from part of an on-going Rand Corporation study of change agent programs sponsored by the U.S. Office of Education. It concentrates on staff development as a vehicle for change in schools. After a brief introduction, the methodology of the study is presented. The third section examines…

Criticizes reports on educational reform for possessing an ideological climate in which inquiry and dissent are quieted, and vocationalism (packaged as academic courses) is rampant. The reports compromise between influence and insight and neglect fundamental problems such as inability of schools to provide students with critical abilities needed…

This study explored the effects of professional development experiences, based on Morin's (1990, 1994) theoretical model, on teachers' abilities to implement planned educational change. It focused on one elementary school's initiative, Project Learn, which emphasized cooperative planning for change, preparing for planned change, and…

This report gives a brief account of the history and policies of teacher organizations in the United States. It provides profiles of several local, state, and national independent education organizations, notes the services they offer for teachers, and discusses their strengths and weaknesses. The first two sections on the National Education…

This book is an outgrowth of an international seminar held in Bali, Indonesia in 1986 entitled "Improving the Quality of Teaching in the Developing World: Alternative Models." The book contains essays written by 20 authors and coauthors from 12 different countries and is divided into five sections, plus a preface. The focus of section 1,…

States are implementing standards-based reforms because of past failures to produce educational environments that ensure high academic achievement. The development of state standards, the availability of related curriculum documents, assessing student achievement, and institutional accountability measures have been some of the most effective…

Arguing that transformative teacher professional development may require more than a shift in the content of teachers' thinking, this paper examines how the structure of teachers' meaning-making systems might affect their experiences in three mathematics teacher professional development programs. The paper describes the change goals of three…

This paper reports on a study that systematically analyzes the hundreds of collective-bargaining agreements for school districts in the state of Michigan. It examines collective bargaining's impact on Michigan's public education and makes recommendations that school boards should incorporate into their union contracts to improve their ability to…

Block periods of 75, 90, 100 minutes, or longer require good teachers to continue to develop and improve their teaching skills while keeping the student engaged over a long period. The fewer class meetings in the semester or year, and the rich potential for creativity and innovation provided by the longer period all combine to offer a challenge…