Examines the purposes of student evaluation and how they influence the daily life of the classroom. Discusses feedback to students and parents, minimum competencies, classroom observations, formal tests, and self-evaluation. (SS)

Outlines ways a teacher can promote and inhibit thinking in children, and provides a worksheet for self evaluation. (SB)

Outlines nine steps to curriculum planning: specify learning outcomes; identify constraints; assess physical environment needs; identify classroom practices required to do the job; orient the pupils; select teaching materials; organize the learning experience; get daily feedback from classroom observations; and evaluate the outcomes. (ED)

Identifies technological changes and the implications of computer-based learning for students and classroom activities. Presents person-oriented goals that teachers might implement in the classroom (based on a vision of the future) and encourages individual teacher's self-appraisal to close the gap between real and idealized classroom functioning.…

Recommends to teachers practical and theoretical strategies, based on everyday classroom interactions, for dealing with the troubled child and for treating children as individuals. Suggests a closer professional relationship between teachers and supervisors, administrators, and academicians for appreciating teachers' roles and managing stress and…

Points out the benefits of "sciencing"--helping children learn the methodology and processes of scientific investigation through the use of play experimentation. (SKC)

Maintains that teachers can help students achieve personal power (autonomy) through emphasis on real tasks that involve thinking. Illustrates how this may be incorporated into classroom practice through two teaching strategies: incorporating higher-order thinking tasks--comparing--into the school day; and inviting children to offer their ideas.…

Maintains that it is necessary to compare different educational practices and teaching strategies before choosing a practice or strategy for a particular situation. Offers as an example the possibility of the United States adopting the teaching strategies of the Japanese educational system. (BB)

Describes a teacher education course which focused on study of critical incidents to analyze teachers' decision-making practices. A film which portrayed a teacher in decision-making crisis was viewed and later discussed in small groups. Teachers were asked to relate the film to personal experiences and to keep a journal during the course to…

Describes a sixth-grade teacher's experiences in managing a student-centered classroom. The author describes her planning, the way in which she managed her initial disappointments and what she learned from them, and her ultimate success. (RJC)

Discusses the importance of error as a mode of learning in the classroom. Argues that when children are not afraid of making errors, they are more likely than otherwise to take cognitive risks and raise provocative questions. (RJC)

Discusses four means/ends discrepancies, explaining why teachers who say they want to promote children's thinking behave in ways counterproductive to their goals. Discrepancies involve classroom materials, teacher/student interactions, pupil outcomes, and professional growth. (RH)

Presents observations of how a particular teacher education program, the Open Education Alternative Program at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada, incorporates the acquisition of teaching skills into the "reflective" practice of these skills. (BB)

Provides suggestions to help teachers become (1) more aware of ways they verbally interact with students, (2) more objective in listening when they talk with students, (3) more aware of the debilitating consequences on pupils of long-term directing and judgmental responses, and (4) more aware of interactions that promote pupil autonomy and…

Author describes a workshop where she experienced the organic curriculum" including the key vocabulary". (SP)