The objectives of the Pennsylvania School Improvement Program (PSIP), funded by the National Institute of Education from 1976 to 1980, were to help schools analyze basic skills needs and improve student performance through the use of research-based programs and techniques. The data uncovered the need to improve instructional management, improve…

Several systematic approaches to problem-solving hold promise for urban education. These include proactive leadership, third parties as problem solvers, citizen involvement, and the decision seminar. Proactive leadership is required to assure educational opportunity constructed upon the companion principles of equity and quality. One example of…

Understanding both process and context is essential to resolving problems. This paper articulates the decision seminar model, a rational problem-solving technique, and uses a hypothetical policy problem to show how various stages of the model might be applied to school issues. Process facilitates problem definition, inhibits fragmentation, and…

Provides a simple routine which allows first-year physics students to use programmable calculators to solve otherwise complex electrostatic problems. These problems involve finding electrostatic potential and electric field on the axis of a uniformly charged ring. Modest programing skills are required of students. (DH)

Ten functions of program theory are reviewed: contributing to social science knowledge; assisting policymakers, discriminating between theory failure and program failure, identifying the problem and target group, providing program implementation description, uncovering unintended effects, specifying intervening variables, improving formative use…

A problem-solving approach to teaching language rules to language-disordered children is described through an analogy with baseball. (CB)

Although it is often useful to accept students' value statements nonjudgmentally, values clarification theory recommends that teachers go beyond moral leadership and help students learn to think through their personal values and understand what it takes to live a value-directed life. Methods to promote and clarify our "heritage of moral values"…

Presented are problem solving tips and activities for elementary school mathematics. Included are suggestions for integrating problem solving into other parts of the curriculum and estimation activities. (RH)

Administrators who "lionize" leadership miss important behind-the-scenes aspects of daily management. They depict the grand design without niggling problems and assume that leadership belongs exclusiveley to the heroic boss. Leaders often achieve best results by being skilled listeners, acting like followers, and depending on followers…

The article describes a series of mathematics master classes held in London for 12- to 14-year-old students with exceptionally high mathematical ability. The emphasis of the classes was on problem-solving. A synopsis of the activities is included. (DB)

Teachers at a south London secondary school met regularly in group sessions with staff from a hospital-based children's clinic to find new approaches to working with students with behavior difficulties. The evolving structure, purpose, procedures, and outcomes of this interdisciplinary collaborative effort over a seven-year period are described.…

The Mathematical Olympiad Training Session is designed to give United States students a problem-oriented exposure to subject areas (algebra, geometry, number theory, combinatorics, and inequalities) through an intensive three-week course. Techniques used during the session, with three sample problems and their solutions, are presented. (JN)

Discusses the wilderness lab medium for executive and team development. Provides insights on key design elements and facilitation challenges useful to potential wilderness lab "consumers." (JOW)

Participation in the National History Day program (involving student papers, presentations, projects, and performances) provides many opportunities for eliciting the gifted behavior of sixth- through twelfth-grade students. The program, which emphasizes student involvement in real problems, can be used in the resource room, mainstreamed, advanced…

Describes a computer program used in an experiment in which the partial molal volumes of sodium chloride solutions are calculated as a function of concentration from densities measured with a pycnometer. The complete program listing (also available from the author on disk) and a sample run are included. (JN)