One of the most challenging daily experiences of teaching young adolescents is helping them transition from Piaget's concrete to the formal operational stage of cognitive development during the middle school years. Students who have reached formal operations can design and test hypotheses, engage in deductive reasoning, use flexible thinking,…

In Northern Ireland, young people exist in a health environment where the experience of social disadvantage is translated into serious risks to health and personal development. The years of political conflict have tended to obscure these health problems, and it is important that the difficulties faced by young people are examined and…

This volume articulates a general program of implementation strategies and provides practical advice for integrating environmental medicine content into medical education. Chapter 1 is an introduction to the issues and the organization of the volume. Chapter 2 lays the foundation for a curriculum centered on six competency-based learning…

In order to educate preservice teachers about the experiences of poor children, a course on critical issues in education incorporated work in social service agencies. The course was based in theories of critical pedagogy as proposed by Paulo Freire, multicultural education, and the ideas of Benjamin R. Barber. The field experience aimed to allow…

High expectations and appropriate standards for learning and achievement are important to any curriculum plan. The need for curriculum to meet developmental needs is particularly important for middle-level students. Middle-level students are unlike any other age group and are internally varied. Not all middle-level students need the same things at…

In the context of the growing movement towards outcome based education, this paper provides a basic overview of this movement and its implications for the professional preparation of health educators, particularly as implemented in Pennsylvania. After listing the three basic principles and four concepts of outcome based education, the paper…

Explaining that an integrated curriculum is one that makes explicit the ways in which connections between ideas are perceived, this book provides background and offers practical suggestions for implementing and managing an integrated curriculum in the classroom. The book notes that the integrated curriculum approach goes by many names--integrated…

This paper presents a newly-revised information technology curriculum and an interdisciplinary curriculum which couples information systems (IS) and computer science. Discussion includes changes in teaching and learning methods; technological developments; partnerships with businesses and educational institutions; a collaborative curriculum…

This paper retraces the early development of the social studies curricular pattern of the 1920s and the subsequent division between social studies advocates, represented by the National Council for the Social Studies, and history-centered supporters, represented largely by the American Historical Association. The document maintains that the…

This paper summarizes ongoing theoretical work and the findings of a recent research project in nursing and midwifery education to understand the problems encountered with using scientific knowledge in actual health care practice and to address these problems with educational program redesign. Case studies and mini-studies are used to investigate…

Distance education may have a greater impact on the nature of higher education than any innovation since the invention of the printing press. In "virtual classrooms," students and faculty do not have to meet at the same time, collaborative learning is facilitated, and the specialized communication provided by computers can sometimes be…

The origins and design of a framework for Japanese second language instruction and curriculum development, created for use in international schools in Japan, are described. The effort was part of a Japanese Language Project undertaken by the Japanese Council for International Schools and funded by the Japanese Ministry of Education. The guiding…

The quality of the academic standards in America's public schools is one of the pressing issues on the minds of parents and the public. This document, the second annual report by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), examines how many states are committed to setting common academic standards and analyzes the quality of the standards against…

The quality of the academic standards in America's public schools is one of the pressing issues on the minds of parents and the public. This document, the third annual report by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), reports on how many states are committed to setting common academic standards and analyzes the quality of the standards against…

A symposium was held in Berne, Switzerland, in March 1996 to define the key competencies that secondary students should acquire to prepare for either employment or higher education. This document summarizes the symposium discussions of plenary sessions and working groups, comprised of teachers and school managers. The conference participants…