Discusses the two major forms of curriculum design in Australian medical schools: the innovative approach and the traditional approach. The innovative medical school has a problem-based, student-centered community orientation and has been the curriculum of choice in the newer medical schools for meeting future challenges in medical education. The…

Suggests English teachers might draw from authors such as Carl Sagan, Arthur C. Clarke, Mary Shelly and others: (1) to knock down the walls that separate science and literature; (2) to show their interrelationship; and (3) to instill enthusiasm for the study of both. (NH)

Describes the nature, implementation, and value of a spiral curriculum in which topics of study are revisited with each successive encounter building on the previous one. (Contains 12 references.) (WRM)

This article discusses conceptual models and previous research that illuminate the complex and promising relationship between career-oriented schooling and self-determination for students with disabilities, and all students. The benefits of career-oriented schooling are highlighted, including effects on academic achievement, engagement,…

This article describes the development of an inner-city public school for highly gifted and high achieving students in northeast Denver. It discusses deciding on the school's design, using block schedules to provide the time needed to study integrated units, and the need to help students initially with basic skills. (Contains one reference.) (CR)

This article discusses home schooling for gifted children and describes the most common teaching strategies or pedagogical approaches that home schoolers have successfully used, including: classical, lifestyle of learning, schooling at home, structured/mastery learning, unit studies, unschooling, worldview, and curriculum-based. The benefits of…

Considers how two preservice students' histories as readers and students of literature intersected with their secondary-school literature course and how their developing stances on teaching literature changed as they moved through their preservice teaching. Illustrates the impact of a secondary literature course and preservice teaching on…

The Israel Arts and Science Academy for gifted secondary students is described. The goal of the academy is to graduate learners who will apply their gifts to the betterment of the human condition. The Greek ideal of the unity of truth, beauty, and goodness serves as the central curricular force. (Contains three references.) (Author/CR)

This commentary discusses publication of QCA guidelines on developing the curriculum for pupils with learning difficulties. It links the guidelines to the recent review of the National Curriculum and identifies some of the contributions these guidelines can make to planning, teaching, and assessment. Challenges for practice and research are…

This article responds to a commentary (Colwill, Peacey) that discusses publication of QCA guidelines on developing the curriculum for pupils with learning difficulties. While acknowledging that the guidelines will lead to an evolution of good practice, it urges staff to continue to appreciate and value their own development work. (Contains six…

The development and promotion of the "expanding communities" curriculum design model for teaching elementary school social studies was a crucial episode in the history of social studies. This article profiles how the model developed in the mind of its most effective promoter, Paul Robert Hanna. Paul Hanna understood early in his career the…

Performance theorist Herbert Blau's "The Audience" (Baltimore and London, Johns Hopkins Press, 1990) is an important yet neglected theoretical text on theatre audience. Deconstructive, dense and allusive in nature, Blau's text creates a real challenge for his reader. This paper presents a study of "The Audience" employing what I am calling…

This article describes and defends a revision of the traditional elementary social studies curriculum rationale. It calls for retaining most of the same topics, but developing them more coherently and shifting emphasis from the expanding communities sequence to introducing students to the fundamentals of the human condition as the primary…

Peter Tymms has written recently ("BERJ", August 2004) on the subject of measuring whether standards are rising in English and mathematics in primary schools based on pupil outcomes from national end of key stage tests. This article takes the position that the performance data debate is an interesting one but peripheral to a far bigger…

This article presents an analysis of the way in which a group of students at one UK university mobilised their interest in and commitment to pro/feminist values and ideals through the establishment of a student society geared towards combating anti-sexism. Placing the students at the centre of the discussion, the article describes the various…