Restless teachers and institutional support for change 1

For the past 12 years the Panel on Research and Development of Instructional Resources of the Committee on Instructional Cooperation (CIC) has published an annual compendium of selected instructional/curricular changes in the Big Ten universities. A content analysis of 398 project summaries is the basis for the interpretive evaluations given in this article. College teaching is more varied than in former years and the discipline teacher generally needs professional assistance in the design of a project and in working out the procedures for evaluation. The position is taken that the resource structure of the university is more out of line with the demands of the time than is the reward structure.     

The Attention Skills and Academic Performance of Aggressive/Rejected and Low Aggressive/Popular Children

Research Findings: Aggressive/rejected children are at risk for continuing conduct and school problems. Some limited research indicates that these children have attention problems. Previous research has linked attention problems with academic performance. The current study investigated group differences in attention skills and the role of these skills in children's academic performance. Kindergarten and 1st-grade children (n = 54, 52% female) were identified as either aggressive/rejected or low aggressive/popular by peer sociometric interviews. Attention was assessed with a novel computer task, the Children's Space Game, as well as parent and teacher report. Teachers reported on children's academic performance. Aggressive/rejected children had lower adult-reported attention skills and academic performance than low aggressive/popular children. Aggressive/rejected children also had lower skills on the computer task. Support was found for an additive model of the influence of children's status and attention skills on their academic performance even after controlling for maternal education and family income but no evidence was found that attention moderated the relation between children's status and their academic performance. Practice or Policy: Aggressive/rejected children appear at significant risk for attention problems and these problems predict their academic performance. Future research should investigate whether these children would benefit from additional support of their attention skills.     

Teaching teachers: “Nation at risk” and the issue of knowledge in teacher education

Teacher education in the United States is historically grounded in a nineteenth century conception of education, influenced to some degree by social darwinism, and based on an efficiency, scientific deterministic model of teaching and learning. The knowledge disseminated in teacher training programs gives legitimacy to certain conceptions of reality and perpetuates a hierarchical structure without questioning the relationship between values, facts, and assumptions inherent in knowledge production: such knowledge must be viewed as problematic. This article argues for the efficacy of a critical consciousness in teacher preparation paradigms. By studying the methodological accounts of several master teachers, students of education can receive a theoretical grounding in and practical examples of emancipatory pedagogy in daily classroom activities.     

Utilizing Research on Prospective Teachers' Beliefs to Inform Urban Field Experiences

Beliefs about teaching students from cultures and contexts different from their own strongly influence what prospective teachers are willing and able to learn about urban teaching. The objectives of the study were to (1) describe and analyze the beliefs our prospective teachers had about becoming professional teachers in an urban context; (2) analyze how the field experiences in an introductory education course supported or inhibited prospective teachers' examination of those beliefs; and (3) provide implications for designing meaningful field experiences. The results provided insight into three dilemmas that should be considered when designing field experiences.     

Linking for learning: Computer-and-communications network support for nationwide innovation in education

Just as the grand challenges in scientific research require computer-communications network support for collaboration among geographically disparate institutions, disciplines, and individuals, so the grand challenges of educational reform require new kinds of collaborations across previously separate institutional boundaries and among individuals whose work was previously isolated from one another. The national and international computer communications infrastructure is being engineered and deployed at the same time as new structures are sought for education. Know-how about productive educational applications of computer communications has been gained from previous and current projects. Productive projects in educational telecomputing will focus on the grand challenges of education, and at the same time help to build appropriate telecommunications infrastructure for education. A reasonable goal is to have in operation, by the mid-1990s, the intellectual, technological, educational, and organizational foundation necessary for productive and efficient use of computer-communications networks for education.Opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect official policy of the National Science Foundation.