Showing papers on "Curriculum published in 1987"

The Stratification of High School Learning Opportunities.

Abstract: This paper suggests that students' opportunities to learn may be stratified both between and within schools: Schools serving a more affluent and able clientele may offer more rigorous and enriched programs of study, and students in college-preparatory curricular programs may have greater access to advanced courses within schools. This notion is tested with a longitudinal, nationally representative sample of public school students from the High School and Beyond data base. The results show few between-school effects of school composition and offerings but important within-school influences of curriculum tracking and coursetaking. In most cases, the difference in achievement between tracks exceeds the difference in achievement between students and dropouts, suggesting that cognitive skill development is affected more by where one is in school than by whether or not one is in school.

The theory of cost-benefit analysis

Abstract: Students face four decision margins: (a) How many years to spend in school, (b) What to study, (c) How much effort to devote to learning per year and (d) Whether to disrupt or assist the learning of classmates. The thousands of studies that have applied human capital theory to the first two questions are reviewed elsewhere in this volume and the Handbook series. This chapter reviews an emerging economic literature on the effects of and determinants of student effort and cooperativeness and how putting student motivation and behavior at center of one's theoretical framework changes one's view of how schools operate and how they might be made more effective. In this new framework students have a dual role. They are both (a) investors/consumers who choose which goals (outputs) to focus on and how much effort to put into each goal and (b) workers getting instruction and guidance from their first-line supervisors, the teachers. A simple model is presented in which the behavior of students, teachers and administrators depends on the incentives facing them and the actions of the other actors in the system. The incentives, in turn, depend upon the cost and reliability of the information (signals) that is generated about the various inputs and outputs of the system. Our review of empirical research support many of the predictions of the model. Student effort, engagement and discipline vary a lot within schools, across schools and across nations and have significant effects on learning. Higher extrinsic rewards for learning are associated the taking of more rigorous courses, teachers setting higher standards and more time devoted to homework. Taking more rigorous courses and studying harder increase student achievement. Post-World War II trends in study effort and course rigor, for example, are positively correlated with achievement trends. Even though, greater rigor and higher standards improve learning, parents and students prefer easy teachers. They pressure tough teachers to lower standards and sign up for courses taught by easy graders. Curriculum-based external exit examinations (CBEEES) improve the signaling of academic achievement to colleges and the labor market and this increases extrinsic rewards for learning. Cross-section studies suggest that CBEEES result in greater focus on academics, more tutoring of lagging students, and higher levels of achievement. Minimum competency examinations (MCE) do not have significant effects on learning or dropout rates but they do appear to have positive effects on the reputation of high school graduates. As a result, students from MCE states earn significantly more than students from states without MCEs and the effect lasts at least eight years. Students who attend schools with studious well-behaved classmates learn more. Disruptive students generate negative production externalities and cooperative hard-working students create positive production externalities. Peer effects are also generated by the norms of student peer cultures that encourage disruptive students and harass nerds. In addition learning is poorly signaled to employers and colleges. Thus, market signals and the norms of student peer culture do not internalize the externalities that are pervasive in school settings and as a result students typically devote less effort to studying than the taxpayers who fund schools would wish.

The Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach: A Bridge to the Mainstream

Abstract: The Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA) is designed for limited English proficient students who are being prepared to participate in mainstream content-area instruction. CALLA provides transitional instruction for upper elementary and secondary students at intermediate and advanced ESL levels. This approach furthers academic language development in English through content-area instruction in science, mathematics, and social studies. In CALLA, students are taught to use learning strategies derived from a cognitive model of learning to assist their comprehension and retention of both language skills and concepts in the content areas. This article first discusses the rationale for CALLA and the theoretical background on which the approach is based. This is followed by a description of the three components of CALLA: a curriculum correlated with mainstream content subjects, academic language development activities, and learning strategy instruction. Finally, a lesson plan model integrating these three components is briefly described.

Learning Mathematics From Examples and by Doing

Abstract: This article demonstrates the feasibility and effectiveness of teaching several mathematical skills by presenting students with carefully chosen sequences of worked-out examples and problems - without lectures or other direct instruction. Thinking-aloud protocols of 20 students learning factorization by this method are analyzed to determine the kinds and depth of understanding students attained. Students did not simply memorize procedures but were able to recognize when the procedures were applicable and to apply them. Most students were also able to use their understanding of the concept of factorization to help learn the procedures and to check their results. The method of learning from examples has now been tested successfully with a class covering the entire 3-year curriculum in algebra and geometry in a Chinese middle school.

The journal club and medical education: over one hundred years of unrecorded history.

Abstract: Sir William Osler organized a journal club at McGill University in 1875, and several authors suggest that journal clubs were found in certain European countries (in particular, Germany and England) prior to that time. The evolution and development of the journal club, however, has not been recorded in the medical literature. Through personal communications and interviews with senior clinicians and historians, I have traced the history of the journal club as an educational modality. In the early 1900s in Germany, journal clubs were routinely found in departments of medicine and medical schools. From 1917-1975, journal clubs evolved into a forum for continuing medical education. Recently, journal clubs have been designed to teach critical appraisal skills to physicians-in-training. Journal clubs are currently found in the fields of medicine, surgery, psychiatry, nursing, pharmacy, obstetrics and gynaecology, paediatrics and geriatric social service. This powerful educational tool has played an active role in medical education for over a century. The journal club should be more formally incorporated into the medical educational curriculum.

Curriculum tracking and status maintenance

Abstract: Prior studies of the role of curriculum tracking in status maintenance have offered contradictory results, suggesting either that (1) tracking sorts children from different backgrounds into different curricular programs where they receive differential educational treatments; (2) tracking sorts children on the basis of ability rather than class background, thus facilitating social mobility; or (3) while tracking may sort children, it has little effect upon educational outcomes and thus has no role in status maintenance. This paper uses 1980s data from the High School and Beyond Study to estimate the effects of curriculum tracking over a two-year period on a number of dependent variables for students who have experienced only one track placement. The results show that there are substantial differences among students from different socioeconomic origins in ultimate track destination. Track location is modestly to moderately related to number of courses taken,. academic performance, educational and occupational aspirations, satisfaction with school, perceived values of friends, self-esteem, extracurricular participation and leadership, enrollment in postsecondary education, disciplinary climate, and teacher treatment. A reopening of the status maintenance hypothesis is suggested.

Early intervention for disabled infants and their families: a quantitative analysis.

Abstract: In an evaluation of 31 selected studies, statistical procedures for synthesizing data (meta-analysis) were used to assess the effects of early intervention services on disabled children younger than 3 years of age and on their families. Results indicate that early intervention is effective in promoting developmental progress in infants and toddlers with biologically based disabilities. Programs that served a heterogeneous group of children, provided a structured curriculum, and targeted their efforts on parents and children together appeared to be the most effective. Definitive evaluation of the efficacy of early intervention programs is tempered by the restricted range of outcomes measured and by a paucity of information about the children and families enrolled in such programs, as well as about the specific nature of the services received. Despite their limitations, available data provide the basis for a rational pediatric approach to early intervention programs, while highlighting specific directions for further investigation.

Comparing the effects of problem-based and conventional curricula in an international sample

Abstract: In this article, the authors review 15 studies that compare various educational outcomes of problem-based, community-oriented medical curricula with those of conventional programs. The data suggest that problem-based curricula provide a student-centered learning environment and encourage an inquisitive style of learning in their students as opposed to the rote memorization and short-term learning strategies induced by conventional medical education. In addition, community-oriented schools appear to influence the career preferences of their students. The few data available show that significantly larger proportions of graduates from these schools seek careers in primary care. Some of the studies reviewed suggest that students in conventional programs perform somewhat better on traditional measures of academic achievement than do students in problem-based curricula. However, these differences, if any, tend to be very small. Data with respect to performance on instruments measuring clinical competence are inconclusive. Finally, the authors discuss the difficulties involved in carrying out comparative research at the curriculum level.

Structuring and Adjusting Content for Students: A Study of Live and Simulated Tutoring of Addition

Abstract: This study examined how six experienced teachers acquired information about students’ knowledge and used that information to adjust their instruction while tutoring. Each teacher tutored five simulated students and one live student in the algorithm for whole number addition. A diagnostic/remedial perspective in which the teacher forms a detailed model of the individual student’s knowledge and misconceptions was assumed in the early stages of the study, but did not describe adequately the tutoring of the teachers. Diagnosis was not their primary goal. Rather, each teacher appeared to move through a curriculum script—a loosely ordered but well defined set of skills and concepts students were expected to learn, along with the activities and strategies for teaching this material.

The Politics of Personal Knowledge

Abstract: (1987). The Politics of Personal Knowledge. Curriculum Inquiry: Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 319-329.

Approaches to Early Childhood Education

Abstract: I. INTRODUCTION 1. Historical Perspectives on Early Childhood Education. 2. Child Care. 3. The Head Start Program. II. BROAD APPROACHES. 4. Classes for Parents and Young Children: The Family Center Model. 5. The Eriksonian Approach. 6. Behavior Analysis and Principles in Early Childhood Education. 7. The Constructivist Perspective on Early Education: Applications to Children's Museums. 8. The Project Approach: An Overview. 9. Montessori Education Today. 10. Mixed-Age Classrooms for Young Children. III. SPECIFIC PROGRAMS. 11. The Portage Project: An International Home Approach to Early Intervention for Young Children and Their Families. 12. The Developmental-Interaction Approach at Bank Street College of Education. 13. The High/Scope Curriculum for Early Childhood Care and Education. 14. The Ausubelian Preschool Classroom. 15. Educating the Young Thinker Model from Research to Practice: A Case Study of Program Development, or the Place of Theory and Research in the Development of Educational Programs. 16. Reggio Emilia: An Approach or an Attitude? IV. INTEGRAL DIMENSIONS. 17. Including Everyone: A Model Preschool Program for Typical and Special-Needs Children. 18. A Framework for Culturally Relevant, Multicultural, and Anti-Bias Education in the 21st Century. Epilogue. Index.

Student Access to Guidance Counseling in High School

Abstract: The advice students receive on selecting a high school curriculum track or planning an appropriate course of study is likely to come from both home and school. The primary mechanism in America’s public high schools to assist students in making informed decisions about these important choices is guidance counseling. Using data from the first and second follow-ups of High School and Beyond, including student self-reports, test scores, and high school transcripts, we found that guidance counseling services appear to be unequally available to all public high school students. Students from families of lower socioeconomic status (SES), of minority status, and from small schools in rural areas are less likely to have access to guidance counseling for making these important decisions at the beginning of their high school careers. Moreover, students who lack access to guidance counseling are more likely to be placed in nonacademic curricular tracks and to take fewer academic math courses. It appears that students ...

A Stranger in Strange Lands: A College Student Writing across the Curriculum.

Abstract: This study asks questions about the nature of writing processes in classrooms. As students go from one classroom to another, they are presented with new speech situations, and they must determine what constitutes appropriate ways of speaking and writing in each new territory. How do students, in the course of the semester, figure out what the writing requirements are in that discipline and for that teacher, and how do they go about producing it? In order to answer these questions the researcher followed one college student's writing experiences in one class per semester during his freshman and sophomore years. Follow-up data were collected during his junior year. Four research methods were used: observation, interviews, composing-aloud protocols, and text analysis. Conclusions are drawn from the data about how this student figured out what constituted acceptable writing in each classroom, and how he worked to produce it. Also presented are conclusions about what enhanced or denied his success in communicating competently in unfamiliar academic territories. Affecting his success were unarticulated social aspects of classroom contexts for writing as well as explicitly stated requirements and instructions.

To vocationalize or not to vocationalize? That is the curriculum question

Abstract: This paper presents a framework within which curriculum options can be analyzed, with emphasis on the economics of choosing the vocational intensity of instruction. Empirical evidence is reviewed at the primary, secondary and university levels regarding the costs and benefits of alternative programs. Such evidence indicates that the costs of vocational programs are higher than general education while their benefits are comparable. The paper questions the validity of providing vocational instruction in the mainstream educational system and considers more efficient alternatives like vocational institutions or employment based training.

Curriculum Renewal in School Foreign Language Learning

Abstract: The main purpose of this book is to show how the traditions in foreign language teaching and in curriculum renewal should converge, so that the importance of modern language teaching in the educational domain is fully realized.

Low‐Income Hispanic Parents' Contributions to Their First‐Grade Children's Word‐Recognition Skills

Abstract: This article investigates the role Hispanic parents played in nine first-grade children's acquisition of word-recognition skills. Two parents, by directly helping children learn the school's reading curriculum, made the greatest contribution to children's achievement. All parents, despite their low socioeconomic status, were capable of helping their children and expressed willingness to do so. However, there was no systematic attempt by the school to enlist their aid. The significance of these findings for the education of minority children is discussed.

The Internationalization of the Curriculum

Abstract: This note reviews the results of four surveys related to the efforts of the AACSB to internationalize the curriculum of the business schools. The first, a survey of the 1071 participants in the 30 workshop/seminars which have been organized by the AACSB, showed that the workshops have been very beneficial for the participants and affected the courses they teach. The second survey, of all AACSB member schools, showed that most of them plan to internationalize their curriculums by introducing an international dimension into the core courses. But this raises the question of whether the faculty members are trained or prepared to do this. The third survey found that only 64 out of 564 AACSB member schools have one or more exchange programs with foreign business schools, and that only about 125 professors go overseas each year under the aegis of these programs. Finally, a fourth survey, of the 53 largest doctoral programs, indicated that only 17% of the graduates of our doctoral programs study any international courses during their graduate (masters and doctoral) studies. Thus, the next generation of faculty members will have difficulty in introducing any international content into the courses they teach.

Apprenticeship in Literacy.

Abstract: A four-level taxonomy is proposed for categorizing the ways in which literacy is defined operationally in education. The four levels—performative, functional, informational, epistemic—are distinguished in terms of conceptualizations of the relationships between writing and speaking and between writing and thinking. This taxonomy is then used to examine the results of recent research on early literacy development. Two major findings emerge: (a) the universal predisposition among children to develop actively an understanding of the forms and functions of written language and (b) differences between cultural groups in the ways literacy activities are organized. It is argued that an emphasis should be placed on the highest level of literacy in the school curriculum and that this should be the case forall children and at all ages.

How Can Good Strategy Use Be Taught to Children? Evaluation of Six Alternative Approaches

Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter provides an overview of the competent strategy. Similar to the most forms of expertise, competent strategy use takes a long time to develop. Thus, it has been believed that strategy instruction should occur across the school curriculum and in diverse aspects of the child's world. Both direct explanation and reciprocal instruction is well suited to conveying strategies and knowledge about strategies. Direct explanation seems most appropriate for regular classrooms. Given the amount of attention required from the person who is teaching the child, reciprocal instruction seems especially suited to family settings. When small teacher-to-student ratios are possible in school, however, it can be employed there as well. It seems to be powerful with students who experience difficulty learning strategies in the regular classroom setting. Definitive judgments about long-term strategy instruction must be deferred until there are evaluations of extensive strategy instructional interventions that extend over several years. Many strategies have been identified for various tasks in various domains, and the six approaches to instruction identified are available. If the graduates of a strategy-rich program really looked better on a variety of cognitive measures compared to children in the regular curriculum, the finding would be helpful in fuelling additional study and implementation of the strategy instructional approach to education.

Teaching and learning primary science

Abstract: This new edition is revised and updated to take account of the profound changes in primary school science teaching over recent years. The author provides a sound theory-based perspective on school and classroom practice in science, based on a belief that decisions about the curriculum and its implementation in teaching should be based on a clear view of the kind of learning that is intended. The notion of the 'kind of learning' embraces both the way children learn and what they learn, both of which are dependent on the role of the teachers and the organization of the school. In the revision, the author has given attention to the development of learners' ideas in science and to the role of process skills and attitudes in learning with understanding. All aspects of the teacher's active role in providing opportunities, for all learners to develop ideas, skills and attitudes are discussed in practical terms, with many examples. Theoretical and practical aspects of assessment and record-keeping are covered in two new chapters and the section on evaluation of provision has been largely rewritten. This Second Edition is an essential resource for teachers with responsibility for or special interest in science, for advisers, teacher educators and all concerned with curriculum and professional development

Further Comment: Has Shulman Got the Strategy Right?

Abstract: Lee S. Shulman's "Knowledge and Teaching: Foundations of the New Reform" is a profoundly important document. 1 It is an authoritative statement of direction for research which is intended to inform the development of teacher education: it seeks to provide the foundations of the new reform. This movement, like its prede­ cessors in curriculum reform and, more recently, in teacher accountability, seeks the elusive key to professionalization and the improvement of the quality of educa­ tion and teaching in public schools. Yet the article is more than an intellectual anal­ ysis. Shulman indicates his involvement in a political strategy through his partici­ pation in the development of national standards. He links the intellectual and the political by claiming that it is possible to diagnose the detailed knowledge base of teaching from the study of teachers in action. From this study, standards for ac­ creditation and the core structure of a teacher education curriculum may be built. The twin strategy will, if it is successful, have an impact on the professional com­ munity of researchers, teacher educators, and practitioners. That community needs to be confident that Shulman has indeed got the strategy right. Shulman articulates theories and opinions which are not just his own, but are shared by named individuals or groups from whose work he draws (for example, the Holmes Group, 1986). His paper echoes Harold Rugg's attempt to set consen­ sus for the curriculum of the public school (NSSE, 1927) and of Tyler's (1949) comprehensive utopianism. There is much in this strategy to applaud, in particu­ lar the exposure of the limitations of teacher-effectiveness research as an intellec­ tual and political basis for improving the quality of education, and it is from a po­ sition of general sympathy with the direction Shulman is taking that this critique is launched. Yet the intellectual strategy set out by Shulman is flawed: first, in the relative lack of attention to context, as opposed to content; second, in the in­ adequacy of its language of description of the moral framework of teaching; and third, in the lack of sophistication in its account of the relation between reason and action in teaching. Each of these weaknesses, it will be argued, arises from the fact that Shulman's analysis appears assessment-driven. This leads in the fourth sec­ tion of the paper to the political problems in Shulman's strategy, against which,

Curriculum Leadership: Development and Implementation

Abstract: Preface Part 1: Foundations of Curriculum 1. The Nature of Curriculum 2. Curriculum History: The Perspective of the Past 3. Curriculum Theory 4. The Politics of Curriculum Part 2: Curriculum Processes 5. Curriculum Planning 6. Improving the Program of Studies 7. Improving a Field of Study 8. Processes for Developing New Courses and Units Part 3: Curriculum Management 9. Supervising the Curriculum: Teachers and Materials 10. Curriculum Implementation 11. Aligning the Curriculum 12. Curriculum Evaluation Part 4: Current Trends in the Curriculum 13. Current Developments in the Subject Fields 14. Curriculum Developments Across the Curriculum 15. Individualizing the Curriculum Epilogue Appendix A: Management and Monitoring Matrix Appendix B: Developing a Program Philosophy and Rationale Statement Appendix C: Developing a Scope and Sequence, Program Goals, Objectives, Learning Outcomes, and Authentic Tasks Author Index Subject Index About the Authors

Centripetal and Centrifugal Trends in Psychology

Abstract: This chapter describes how psychology, higher education, and American society reflect oppositional centripetal and centrifugal factors, or consolidating and unifying versus diverging and separating qualities, respectively. It discusses how centripetal trends prevailed in psychology, universities, and society at certain times in history and how centrifugal factors dominated at other times. Psychology appears presently to be in a condition where centrifugal forces are very strong, yielding a concern in some quarters that the field is splitting apart. The modern era of psychology in the United States may be said to have begun in the late 1800s, coincident with the founding of Wilhelm Wundt's psychological laboratory in 1879 and the organization of the American Psychological Association in 1892. The dramatic changes in American society described earlier had counterparts in higher education in the form of protest movements, student participation in governance, and new attitudes toward undergraduate and graduate curriculums.

Gender and Computer Experience as Factors in the Computer Attitudes of Middle School Students

Abstract: Students' attitudes toward computers are important to success in implementing computer-related programs in school curricula. This study of 561 seventh and eighth grade students examines the effects...