Vicki Zack, a classroom teacher and researcher, returned to the fifth grade classroom in 1989 after more than a decade of teaching in a university faculty of education in order to teach in the changing ecologies of classrooms (with problem-solving approaches in mathematics and literature-based approaches in reading) and to research from the…

When children start school it is not just a transition to a new physical context, but also an entry point to a new "culture" where aspects of teaching, learning and assessment are different, and hence what it means to be a learner is constructed differently. In recent years, there has been increasing interest in making links between…

In part 1 of this article Zack and Reid offered two examples of students operating with good-enough understandings in mathematics, and related their understandings to features of good-enough understanding identified by Mackey (I997) in the context of reading. Mackey contends that the ability to read further, on the basis of a very imperfect…

Upon the occasion of the University of Heidelberg (the oldest higher education institution in the Federal Republic of Germany) celebration of its 600th anniversary in 1986, this historical overview and current review of higher education in the Federal Republic looks at a wide range of topics. Contents include: "The Historical Growth of Higher…

The College Admissions Practices Project examined the effects of rising admissions standards on postsecondary minority enrollment. A national survey of 158 institutions gathered data on changes since 1980 in the following areas: enrollment, faculty data, admissions practices, and racially motivated incidents on campus. In addition, questions were…

A class council can collectively decide what components will make up the instructional system in an elementary school class. A class council is a friendly assembly made up of the students and the teacher; it meets to discuss and make decisions about all aspects of the instructional system, including objectives, grading, and materials. Each student…

This paper presents Rudolf Steiner's maturational readiness theory of human physiopsychology and comments on education in the Waldorf Schools. Discussion asserts that Steiner's concept of human development is complex and that intensive study is required for even a superficial understanding of "the four members of man": the physical,…

This paper emphasizes the importance of music as an integral part of the education of the young child, and draws attention to a few ways in which parents and teachers can contribute to children's musical development. Sections of the paper focus on seven questions: (1) Is music really universal? (2) When should musical training begin? (3) When…

This study was undertaken in response to Congressional concern about the relationship between two major federal programs: the Chapter 1 Handicapped Program and the Education of the Handicapped Act (EHA). The study found that, although the services handicapped children receive are similar in both programs, they often are more frequent or more…

In recent years, strategies for multicultural education and human relations have been applied to progressively younger preschool children. This paper identifies five approaches to multicultural education, then goes on to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the predominant human relations approach. Challenging issues encountered in applying…

The newsletter issue presents the results of a project that examined: (1) teaching at the senior level of schools for the mentally retarded in Sweden; (2) teachers' and supervisors' views of the pupils; and (3) the reality of the open labor market. The project analyzed mechanisms in and outside teaching that prevent or impede access to the labor…

This book views higher education conceptually and seeks to recover hidden understandings of the term "higher education" and to show what it would mean for educational aims and practices if higher education were taken seriously. The approach focuses on how higher education is understood rather than how it is practiced. The book argues that the idea…

This paper argues that debate about the need for renewal in undergraduate education should take a back seat to implementation of requisite changes. Evaluation of the renewal process should include obstacles to reform, especially ideological disagreements, time budgets, and reward structures. Five initiatives are proposed to advance the goal of…

There are fundamental differences in the forms of learning addressed by cognitive psychologists and educationalists. The phenomena explained by a psychological theory of learning are the successes of human cognition. The mechanisms posited are designed to account for how learning takes place, where the content of the learning is the physical and…

A study examined the perceptions of Utah vocational agricultural teachers regarding the current and expected role of state and local supervision in agricultural education. The target population for the study was all agricultural science and technology teachers in vocational programs during the 1988-89 school year (64 teachers). Through persistence…