The purpose of the peer support training workshop for which this notebook was produced was to develop peer leadership groups as a way of dealing with student problems connected with school desegregation. The first quarter of the notebook is divided into three sections. Section I gives an overview of workshop goals and development. The meaning and…

Five award-winning high school and college economics education projects of the Program for Innovative Teaching of Reasoning are summarized. Preceding the summaries, an essay by Marvin Bower of the Joint Council on Economic Education suggests that developing reasoning abilities creates a happier and more effective individual, a more effective…

The guided design approach to teaching theatre history encourages active participation in decision making while applying knowledge and learning subject matter concepts. The theatre history course at Rutgers University, New Jersey, uses this approach. With guided design, classroom time is not used for lectures, but is instead reserved for small…

This guide is intended for using in helping students build their self-esteem, self-confidence, and communications, decision-making, and problem-solving skills. The materials, which were originally developed to build self-esteem among older adults and were redesigned to help single female heads of households aged 25 to 50, may be used within the…

This publication builds a conceptual framework that categorizes alternative policy instruments for educational reform into actions. It defines four categories of policy instruments and hypothesizes how each will operate in addressing different policy problems in different political and organizational contexts. Subsequent research will assess…

This paper discusses ways that students can better be taught to think. It argues that poor/low-achieving students served by Chapter 1 of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act of 1981 could genuinely profit from instruction on thinking and that, for maximum impact, such instruction should be introduced as a course in itself, separate from…

This personal/social skills training series consisting of five modules is designed to complement basic academic skills and employment skills training. The objective of the training is to address the affective competencies that adults need to attain and succeed in vocational training and employment. An introduction provides materials for the…

Studies have shown that employers have traditionally agreed on the behaviors and attitudes they expect from employees and on the security and benefits that they are willing to provide in return. Various factors, including rapid technological advancement and increased foreign competition, have changed this. Today's workers generally have less job…

The Program of Research and Evaluation for Public Schools (PREPS) is a consortium of public school districts in Mississippi working with the Bureau of Educational Research and Evaluation in the College of Education at Mississippi State University. PREPS is designed to provide data to local decision makers and aid them in problem identification.…

The use of Bayesian decision theory to solve problems in test-based decision making is discussed. Four basic decision problems are distinguished: (1) selection; (2) mastery; (3) placement; and (4) classification, the situation where each treatment has its own criterion. Each type of decision can be identified as a specific configuration of one or…

Maintaining that lack of action is one of the biggest errors school managers make, this author describes development of competency based education (CBE) programs as one example of how action can be taken by identifying a problem area and systematically approaching it. He defines CBE programs as those involving identification of basic skills, a…

This monograph is designed to provide practical classroom suggestions, including sample lesson plans, to show how teachers can improve the problem-solving competence of students at all educational and ability levels. The examples provided show that problem-solving instruction can be integrated with teaching the content of particular topics. While…

Four portfolio managers who handle common stocks were observed in a study that examined the preference of an alternative decision making process in an information overload situation. The week of observation was arranged so that the portfolio manager focused primarily on the decision making portion of the work rather than on the presentation and…

Automated Student Modelling explicates reasoning strategies, the representation of procedural skills, and underlying misconceptions as manifested in errors. A diagnostic model, based on a "procedural network" as opposed to a "semantic network," is presented which provides a technique both for modelling the underlying cognitive processes of a…

These teacher developed case studies deal with the business and economic history of New England from 1690 to 1965. They are intended to help secondary students develop an understanding of economics and of the decision-making process. Suggestions for teaching, discussion questions, references, and bibliographies are provided for the cases. Several…