Engineering curriculum often fails to connect content and decisions to impacts on diverse, particularly marginalized, communities. Given that integration of social justice ideas into curriculum is currently uncommon among most faculty, we provide resources in the form of a workshop to help catalyze these efforts by teaching faculty how to…

The Common Planning Time Project of the Middle Level Education Research Special Interest Group (MLER SIG) of the American Educational Research Association provided an avenue through which researchers from throughout the United States could investigate numerous aspects of common planning time in schools. Although several studies have investigated…

This essay presents infrastructuring as a useful construct for guiding efforts to support more equitable implementation and sustainability of resources developed to support student learning in design-based research. "Infrastructuring" refers to activities that aim to redesign components, relations, and routines of schools and districts…

Research shows that educators are not prepared to address real life issues such as substance abuse, HIV/AIDS, and bullying in the classroom. Yet, students with learning disabilities remain vulnerable to each of these pressing life issues. The purpose of the current study was to determine whether the curriculum infusion (CI) model increased the…

IN ITS SIMPLEST FORM, THE PROBLEM OF EDUCATION AND CULTURAL DEPRIVATION REDUCES TO ONE OF HOW CHILDREN WHO HAVE BEEN DISADVANTAGED BY THEIR ENVIRONMENT CAN BE BROUGHT UP TO THE EDUCATIONAL LEVEL OF MORE FORTUNATE CHILDREN. MANY APPROACHES ARE POSSIBLE. AMONG THE VARIABLES WHICH MUST BE STUDIED IN DEPTH ARE--THE STUDENT, HOME ENVIRONMENT, PEER…

Given the growth in community colleges, the projected need for health career workers, and the central position of the department chair in higher education, this study explored dimensions of leadership as identified by health career department chairs in five Illinois community colleges. Areas of study included: (a) professional profiles of health…

The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) documents dimensions of quality in undergraduate education and provides information and assistance to colleges, universities, and other organizations to improve student learning. Its primary activity is annually surveying college students to assess the extent to which they engage in educational…

EDUCATING THE CULTURALLY DIFFERENT LEARNER COULD BE IMPROVED THROUGH ACTION PROGRAMS PARALLELED BY EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH. THE IDENTIFICATION OF TRAITS AND ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS THAT REVERSE THE EFFECTS OF CULTURAL DEPRIVATION AND ALLOW INDIVIDUALS TO BREAK OUT FROM THEIR CULTURAL COCOONS AND THE PRESENTATION OF THE CURRICULUM TO THE CULTURALLY…

Higher learning organizations frequently offer courses isolated from other disciplines or areas of concentration. The intent of this study was to explore collaboration practices on authentic based projects involving two distinct courses from differing programs: Instructional Technology and Educational Leadership. This paper describes the…

The purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy of traditionally spoken linguistic analysis approaches for understanding the nature and outcomes of online interaction. The study took place with twenty-eight elementary school teachers in ten suburban Chicago schools involved in a technology-supported, problem-based learning curriculum…

In May of 1977, each public school district and regional superintendent in the 31 southernmost counties of Illinois (principally rural, small schools) was sent a number of the Needs Assessment Instruments. The 295 returned instruments included responses from the following elementary and secondary personnel: teachers (N=86); principals (N=85);…

Describes a four-year Illinois project to identify twelve topics that can be developed into instructional modules for teaching occupational survival skills. Topics include working in an organization, understanding self/others, motivation, interpersonal relations, on-the-job communications, creativity, authority/responsibility, problem solving,…

This paper addresses a decline in educational standards and discusses the role of curriculum. After defining the problem, it presents the evidence, pointing to the following factors: (1) decreasing student achievement after the fourth or fifth grade; (2) a curriculum that reflects and perpetuates this decline, e.g., by setting course requirements…

This paper reports on a project designed to improve student achievement through better communication between parents/guardians and teachers of 9th-grade science students in a large, north-central Illinois urban community. Analysis of probable-cause data revealed that no structured means of communication existed. Attempts to communicate were…

The proceedings cover a conference of representatives of all the community colleges in the southern part of Illinois and one in Kentucky with representatives from the School of Technical Careers at Southern Illinois University. The conference objectives were to discuss common problems and issues related to closer coordination of effort among the…