Essentially concerned with distance education as innovation in higher education, this paper identifies specific aspects of this innovation through references to three Canadian institutions offering university level courses for credit. It is primarily concerned with Athabasca University in Alberta, a distance education university which originally…

A preschool teacher in Japan tells how she uses "the artifacts of advancement," such as the songs children have become familiar with through watching television, to educate "the feeling heart" of young children and lead them to involvement with and appreciation of nature. After a description of the Sasanoha kindergarten in…

This document presents case studies of eight demonstration projects selected to assess the practicality and feasibility of a monograph for improving and measuring the impact of vocational education demonstration projects. An introduction provides background of the project that developed that monograph and information on the case studies, including…

This project was conducted to upgrade Seattle Central Community College's four-quarter respiratory care program to a two-year associate degree program in respiratory therapy. The program needed to include a developmental pathway for entry of nontraditional students and also a college-level prerequisite entry pathway for traditional students. In…

This chapter examines, from four perspectives, the ways in which educational research, development, and evaluation activities in the United States are organized, controlled, and supported, and considers whether research can be properly used to shape educational policy and practice. First, the size and historical development of the research and…

Past research has correlated differential curriculum implementation outcomes at the classroom level with the actions of the key change facilitator at the school level: the principal. Accordingly, this paper reports the results of a study of three change facilitator styles among principals: responders, managers, and initiators. Working definitions…

In response to numerous criticisms of technocratic models of social studies curricula this paper describes a critical approach to curriculum design. Major areas of criticism related to knowledge, learning and evaluation, and teaching are explored as they relate to issues of curriculum planning and implementation and a critical approach to…

Researchers are becoming increasingly aware of context variables in interpreting research findings. The Procedures for Adopting Educational Innovations (PAEI) Project at the Texas Research and Development Center for Teacher Education has been attempting to identify and conceptualize important research-based and clinical-based context variables. An…

This document contains brief descriptions of 100 school district initiatives taken in response to legislator and state department of education mandated educational reforms. Each description, contributed by a paticipant, is indexed by reform category, school district cluster, implementation level, and state. Section divisions in the index of reform…

The result of a decade of work collecting documents, interviews, and observations, the manuscript describes the operation of the modern day Samoan educational system against an historical background of three previous eras that reach back over 200 years to a time when Samoa was virtually unknown to the western world. The development of Samoan…

This fourth annual "Report to the Profession" about the institutional characteristics of the American Assocation of Colleges for Teacher Education members focuses on teacher education program requirements and selected program characteristics. With this report, the "Member Program Information System" is introduced. This offers brief descriptions of…

In 1967, the National Institute for Educational Research (NIER) of Japan, in cooperation with Unesco, launched its Regional Programme for Educational Development in Asia. This document was published to commemorate the 20th anniversary of this program. It consists of papers by separate authors recording the accomplishments of the NIER regional…

In 1985, California launched a 2-year curriculum reform initiative in history and social science that could eventually bring new standards of learning in these areas. Professional studies and student surveys relate a common message: a more extensive, literature-based, issue and idea-oriented curriculum, and better teaching methods would increase…

Based on information provided by 67 two-year colleges from five regions of the United States, this report summarizes the status of the humanities in two-year colleges for the five regions as a whole and for each individually. First, the five-region summary examines current humanities requirements, curriculum changes, teaching strategies, funding…

If social studies is going to contribute to the overall qualitative improvement of public schools, educators must agree on a social studies core curriculum for all students. Social studies educators can take credit for having had a role in the maintenance of one of the world's oldest constitutional democracies, and as a national assessment…