Curriculum augmentation: An application and evaluation of the process

This study was designed to test the feasibility and appropriateness of curriculum augmentation, the process of further developing and strengthening available curricular materials along specified dimensions. The curriculum selected for augmentation in this study was an elementary school social studies unit entitled A House of Ancient Greece, developed in the MATCH Project of the Boston Children's Museum. Following a preliminary analysis, it was decided to augment A House of Ancient Greece by producing a modified Teacher's Guide (containing affective and cognitive learning objectives stated in terms of pupil performance expectations and suggested pupil assessment procedures), an audio tape to supplement the kit materials, and a teacher education component.In addition to briefly outlining how the augmentation of this curriculum was accomplished, the paper describes a field study which was conducted in order to assess the effectiveness of the augmentation. The data of the field study, conducted in schools in New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, support the following conclusions: (1) contrasting versions of the Guide appeared to produce no significant differences in classroom behavior, (2) the classroom performance of workshop-trained teachers appears to have been superior to those not so trained, (3) a high proportion of teachers preferred the augmented Guide over the commercial version, (4) A House of Ancient Greece showed itself to be an exceptionally fine curriculum, apparently eliciting classroom performance well above the norm, as well as great enthusiasm on the part of teachers, pupils, and parents.The research reported in this paper was conducted while the author was affiliated with the Eastern Regional Institute for Education (ERIE), located in Syracuse, N.Y., and the assistance of former ERIE Staff Associates Richard Andrulis and Charles W. Wallace in conducting the field study described herein is gratefully acknowledged.     

Comparison of dyslexic and nondyslexic adults on decoding and phonemic awareness tasks

This study was conducted to determine if the phonemic awareness skills of college-aged dyslexic students (n=10) differ from those of their nondyslexic peers (n=10). Both groups were tested on reading of real and nonsense words and a phoneme reversal task. Although the dyslexic subjects had received considerable language remediation and were all succeeding at their college studies at a level that did not significantly differ from the nondyslexic subjects, they performed significantly poorer on two measures of phonemic awareness: reading of nonsense words and increased error rate and response time on reversal of common three phoneme words. These results were interpreted to suggest that although the dyslexic subjects had improved their reading skills there remained a fundamental deficit in their ability to process phonological information quickly and accurately.     

Abuse and deprivation in failing adoptions

Twelve children seen in psychiatric consultation by the authors over a 3-year period were failing in their adoptive placements. All twelve had been adopted as older children (average age at adoption 5 . Ten out of the12 were males. A retrospective case review demonstrated that all the children shared several common characteristics: (1)a history of both neglect and abusive treatment during at least the first two years of life, (2) a behavioral pattern that wasintermittently provocative and punishment seeking, and (3) an ability to elicit a sense of bewilderment and betrayal in theadoptive parents. Twenty-one months was the average duration of the adoption before the families sought the consultation. These adoptive families were all considered competent by the agencies involved. All had raised other natural and adoptive children successfully. Treatment offered by the authors seemed to be helpful in salvaging 4 of the 12 adoptive placements. The authors present these cases as a way of drawing attention to much needed research, both in better understanding the early attachment process in “older child” adoptions, and in better understanding the relative impact of abuse in influencing the child's subsequent attachment capacities.     

Implementing microcomputers in science teaching

Conclusion The most important finding from this study is that if one adheres to the guidelines from the literature on staff development and educational change, teachers can and will change their teaching behaviors. It is very easy, however, to underestimate the time and resources required to implement change in schools. Even a seemingly simple change such as increasing use of educational computing, which teachers can implement in their individual classrooms without an overhaul of schools, is immensely complex and difficult. Helping teachers and schools change requires a systematic effort, with intensive on-going support over a period of three or more years. Science educators, school leaders, and the public must learn that school improvement is not an event but a continual process of renewal and refinement. This study demonstrates the importance of allocating resources to staff development and implementation along with those for curriculum development. Fortunately, the National Science Foundation has recognized the importance of implementation in school improvement by requiring that implementation be an integral part of all curriculum development projects it funds. As Hall (1986) said, “It is not enough to build pretty boxes; what is important is to get the boxes used.” This article is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. MDR-8470061. Any opionions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.