As state budget allocations for higher education decrease, "specialty" programs such as gerontology must continually demonstrate their productivity. State and private universities increasingly rely on student credit hours (SCH) or tuition generated, which is making it difficult for many gerontology programs to expand. The School of Aging Studies…

The term "higher education" should be redefined to give all grade levels and subjects equal educational value. This effort should involve the Appalachian Teachers' Network, which consists of a group of teachers from all grade levels working to make Appalachian Studies an integral part of education. At Radford University (Virginia) the…

Outcomes of a school improvement program begun in 1988 at Roosevelt Middle School in Eugene, Oregon, are described in this paper. The first part provides a background of the school's innovative process and program development. The second part outlines the school's major components of restructuring--a common vision and core beliefs, principles of…

Educators have long acknowledged that not all learning occurs in a classroom. This paper describes an innovative educational program in Minnesota, where the educational facility was built in a dedicated space at the Mall of America. The program is based on an outcomes-based, transdisciplinary curriculum for 16- to 19-year-old youth, featuring the…

This short 3-page article presents four examples of innovative higher education programs that failed because the ideas were imported from other institutions without understanding the substructures that were needed for success. In the first case study, a Writing Across the Curriculum program was implemented through writing-intensive courses…

Noting that technically competent graduates of professional schools need additional skills to function effectively in an increasingly complex and global society, this paper describes an innovative program in technical writing developed for undergraduate engineering students at the Colorado School of Mines. The paper first provides background…

Innovative programs for the improvement of education in Georgia funded by the Quality Basic Education Act of 1985 are described. Developmental projects address priorities selected by the state board; must meet state validation criteria and have the potential for adoption throughout the state; and must be cost effective, with local fair share match…

The faculty training strategy designed by the South Dakota Medical Information Exchange (SDMIX) staff implements principles of innovation and concern theory to facilitate the adoption of teleconferencing as an instructional medium. The goal of the workshop described is to provide faculty with the skills and experiences necessary for developing…

Societal changes have affected home economics; indignation (which creates a professional environment amenable to change) has been expressed that home economics programs are not focused on life as it really is; are not family-oriented; do not respect and encourage diversity; and are not directed toward concept learning. (AJ)

Article described and then commented on a project and its effects on children and teachers after it was implemented. The project was a social studies course aimed at students aged 9 to 13. (Author/RK)

The East Oak Cliff Subdistrict in Dallas has sought to improve its educational program through a commitment to making the pluralistic setting of the urban school an asset. The major goals of the district are to create a school and community climate which affirms education and multicultural experiences; to implement a more effective delivery system…

In 1976 the National Institute of Education established the Research and Development Utilization (RDU) Program. This project was intended to apply research and development products to local school problems; to develop a problem-solving and product selection process usable by local schools and to organize a linkage system making national, state,…

This paper, generated by the Austin, Texas, Independent School District's Office of Research and Evaluation, offers a set of working hypotheses about what a school district must do in the implementation of programs to improve the cost/effectiveness ratio of educational innovations. The author draws on three years of the Austin school district's…

Six papers focusing on educational change in occupational education are presented. The first paper, by Ronald Havelock, provides a historical review of innovation research models and discusses how the various models have progressed culminating in the Linkage Model. The next three papers address conceptual issues in innovation research. The paper…

As the second of three products designed to assess the interim performance of the U.S. Office of Education's National Diffusion Network, this booklet contains over 160 descriptions of tactics, techniques, and ideas related to innovative education. The descriptions are one-sentence portraitures of various terminal and ongoing educational projects.…