The irrationality of rationalized program development

Conclusions The core of our argument rests in the nature of the relationship between regional and provincial educational authorities and local schools/communities. In the present situation the relationship is ambiguous. On one hand, the province and the boards issue guidelines and demand that local schools develop programs in conformity with them. At the same time the schools are urged to be innovative and to develop programs to meet local needs. Although the drafters of guidelines apparently see no contradiction between these two directives, we, and many practitioners we have talked with, do.It is our position that the local school/community should be primarily accountable to the community it serves for developing learning environments that fairly reflect the community's educational values, expectations, and priorities. The school should be accountable to central authorities for proper expenditure of monies and for observing basic standards of honesty and fair play in its operations. Finally we wish to stress again the importance of providing help rather than advice to developing programs. Advice coming from a source that in the recent past was primarily a legislative and policing agency cannot help but be construed by school practitioners as a thinly disguised directive. Even if this were not the case, advice is of limited value to people who lack the resources and technical expertise to implement their educational ideas. Real help, in the form of needed resources, technical services, and expert consultation, might inject a new spirit of goodwill and cooperation into what has been at best a guarded relationship between the schools and central educational authorities.OISE     

From seeing and hearing to remembering: A conception of the instructional process

This article presents a conceptual schema of the instructional process which is intended to make a number of relevant findings from research more readily understood and applied by designers of instruction and instructional materials. It is based on severll summary sources of research-based findings and principles from the perception, memory, and concept formation literature. The basic conception is that learning is the product of an ongoing interactive process between learner and environment, and that instruction is a temporary and purposeful intervention in that process, the aim of which is the optimization of the learner-environment interaction.The schema is organized around relevant characteristics of the learner, i.e., four basic learner requirements (stimulation, order, strategy, and meaning). These basic learner requirements are subdivided into twenty limitations, particularities and qualities of the human information processing systems. The resulting picture of the human learner provides the basis for describing what the other part of the interaction — the instructional environment — should be like in order to provide an optimum fit between learner and environment. The schema subsumes and interrelates many of the research-based principles found in the literature and hence may make them more memorable and usable.1 Because of the generality of research findings referred to in this schema, few specific references will be given. However, the principles on which the schema is based are all properly credited in the sources noted earlier, e.g. Fleming and Levie (1978).This article is based on a paper presented at the IWAPP Festival 1980, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, January 1980.Note     

The origin and development of a concept: the information society

The constructs that underlie a discipline are complex and often times uncertain. It is argued that the ways in which we perceive and conceptualize are influenced by our habits of mind and our view of the world. This paper traces the concept of the "Information Society" from its inception in the discipline of economics through its development and its subsequent diffusion to the field of information science.     

Centralization vs. decentralization in medical school libraries

Does the medical school library in the United States operate more commonly under the university library or the medical school administration? University-connected medical school libraries were asked to indicate (a) the source of their budgets, whether from the central library or the medical school, and (b) the responsibility for their acquisitions and cataloging. Returns received from sixtyeight of the seventy eligible institutions showed decentralization to be much the most common: 71 percent of the libraries are funded by their medical schools; 79 percent are responsible for their own acquisitions and processing. The factor most often associated with centralization of both budget and operation is public ownership. Decentralization is associated with service to one or two rather than three or more professional schools. Location of the medical school in a different city from the university is highly favorable to autonomy. Other factors associated with these trends are discussed.     

The importance of measuring growth in response to intervention models: Testing a core assumption

A core assumption of response to instruction or intervention (RTI) models is the importance of measuring growth in achievement over time in response to effective instruction or intervention. Many RTI models actively monitor growth for identifying individuals who need different levels of intervention. A large-scale (N=23,438), two-year longitudinal study of first grade children was carried out to compare the predictive validity of measures of achievement status, growth in achievement, and their combination for predicting future reading achievement. The results indicate that under typical conditions, measures of growth do not make a contribution to prediction that is independent of measures of achievement status. These results question the validity of a core assumption of RTI models.     

Computational auditory scene analysis: listening to several things at once

The problem of distinguishing particular sounds, such as conversation, against a background of irrelevant noise is a matter of common experience. Psychologists have studied it for some 40 years, but is is only comparatively recently that computer modelling of the phenomenon has been attempted. This article reviews progress made, possible practical applications, and prospects for the future.