The purpose of this project was to determine whether third grade students, given written directions and necessary materials, could work without teacher direction for 30 minutes. Students (N=25) were to gain skill and confidence in carrying out the processes required for completing an independent learning activity by completing science learning…

Presents three typical lab activities involving the breathing rate of fish, the behavior of electromagnets, and tests for water hardness to demonstrate how labs can be modified to teach process skills. Discusses how basic concepts about experimentation are developed and ways of generating and improving science experiments. Includes a laboratory…

This paper describes the structure of curriculum development, including scope, sequence, grouping for instruction, and providing for individual differences. It first examines the characteristics of a separate subjects curriculum and the characteristics of a correlated curriculum. Next it examines scope, which is defined as the sum total of all the…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 29 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) magnet schools and achievement in reading and mathematics; (2) a psycholinguistic analysis of the oral reading behavior of selected urban students; (3) the…

The ability to think critically is essential if individuals are to live, work, and function effectively in our current and changing society. The activities included in this publication were selected to identify a variety of effective strategies for teaching critical thinking skills through environmental education. Activities include library…

This report provides an end-of-year summative evaluation of the STEPS (Striving Toward Excellence in the Performance of Students) program, which was first implemented in elementary schools in 1983-84. The program, which is based on research on effective schools, focuses on school improvement efforts in six areas: (1) aligning instruction with…

This guide is intended to help teachers give preparatory instruction in the development of basic manipulative skills, safety practices, technical knowledge, and related industrial information in order to prepare students for useful employment in the field of electronics. This first-year guide contains 6 units organized in 21 lesson plans. Each…

This curriculum guide is designed to assist industrial arts teachers, counselors, and administrators in improving instruction in the areas of electricity and basic electronics. Included in the first part of the guide are a course flow chart, a course description, a discussion of target grade levels and prerequisites, course goals and objectives,…

Three magnet middle schools which were established as part of a voluntary desegregation plan in a school system in a large, American city are described in this report. The schools are examined as organizations that differed in their innovative educational approaches to bring about desegregation. One school offered a system of open education, in…

This volume presents 64 abstracts of keynote and parallel paper presentations of the Irish National Academy for Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning's (NAIRTL) conference on the theme of flexible learning. The Flexible Learning conference was a joint initiative by NAIRTL and the Learning Innovation Network. The keynote presentations can…

This document presents the 1992 research and service agendas for the National Center for Research in Vocational Education (NCRVE). It begins with NCRVE's mission statement. Part 1 contains research project descriptions. It sets forth the six issue areas into which NCRVE's research agenda is divided and then groups the descriptions into these…