Provides middle-level teachers with suggestions for evaluating their classroom environment to guarantee a positive classroom climate that will enable students to develop a positive self-concept and achieve academically. Presents six evaluative factors that address challenge, freedom, respect, warmth, control, and success issues. (SD)

Investigates the comparative effectiveness of two teaching strategies, large-group and individual/small group singing activities, on kindergartners' developmental music aptitude. Examines improvements in children's singing and musical aptitude in order to ascertain length of time and types of instruction necessary to affect improvement. (MJP)

Maintains that the Russian educational system is going through an era of uncertainty. Asserts that one source of this uncertainty is the multitude of interpretations regarding the content and structure of the national educational system. Provides recommendations to create a sociocultural educational environment that fosters individual development.…

An experimental colloquium course at the University of Delaware focuses on ways students read and respond to texts. Using nontraditional activities including image making and symbolic expression, the course discourages passive learning as it explores literature and its effect on the reader's inner world. (JB)

Reports on ideas discussed at the second meeting of experimental teachers held in the Soviet Union in 1987. Considers teaching innovations that promote student development and seek cooperative teacher-student relationships, while serving social production needs. Emphasizes student creativity and personal responsibility. Builds from earlier work on…

Drawing on published feminist literature, this essay deconstructs developmentalism as a metanarrative that contributes to the oppression and exploitation of women and underpins educational practice. First, I examine feminist critiques of developmentalism, distinguishing between "insider critiques" formulated by feminist psychologists evaluating…

Over the course of their kindergarten through twelfth grade education, children in American public schools will spend the equivalent of one school year under the guidance of a substitute teacher. Yet in most districts, substitutes are given the keys to the classroom without a day's training. While requirements vary by state, some may hold advanced…

Teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) may be regarded as developing through several major phases that require time and guided practice. This paper describes a graduate class titled "Learning and Development in Exceptional Individuals" in which teachers learn about pedagogy and tie it to content teaching as they work with…

Intended to help early childhood educators examine ways in which guidance can be infused into daily instruction, this manual aims to enable teachers to act as facilitators in the guidance process without adding a new assignment to an already busy schedule. Section A describes the integration of five guidance strands into the early childhood…

This program manual was developed by the Grant-Blackford Development Center in order to help other professionals and organizations working with developmentally disabled persons to improve their recreation and leisure programs. The manual's philosophy is to structure recreation programs for fun, not just for skill teaching: stressing abilities, not…

Contents of this issue are as follows: "Applied Suggestology in the United States: Suggestive-Accelerative Learning and Teaching" by Dean F. Held; "A Study of Suggestopedia Features that Can Be Omitted Once Students Learn How to Learn" by D.H. Schuster and P.J. Wardell; "Evaluation of the Suggestive-Accelerative Lozanov…

A child's own purpose in life is to educate himself and to explore experience; consequently, secondary-school children will benefit from English teaching that encourages their imaginative creativity rather than forces strict adherence to arbitrary rules. When considering their childhood memories and the adult experiences before them, children…

Values in gymnastics are discussed from anthropological, sociological, psychological, and physiological perspectives, which point out the instinctive basis of gymnastic activity and the objectives common to all physical education activities--physical courage, determination, perseverence, self-respect, self-reliance, and empathy. The historical…

This projection of trends in language instruction in the State of New York features a reoriented audiolingual teaching methodology stressing the significance of programed self-instruction with modified educational objectives and goals. Prominent in the discussion are concepts relating to: (1) the teacher as manager of instruction, (2) improvement…

An introduction (Maurice Amutabi et al.) begins this 25-chapter book on adult education and training (AET) in a context of globalization. Chapter titles and authors are as follows: "The Impact of Globalization on Adult Education (AE)" (Ove Korsgaard); "In Defense of Civil Society: Canadian AE in Neo-Conservative Times" (Michael…