Except for its relationship to science, mathematics is the forgotten cousin in interdisciplinary teaching and learning. In the Journeys in Mathematics project, teachers engage children in imaginative activities that inspire them to identify patterns and relationships, solve problems, and communicate accurately, using Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's…

Waldorf education, rooted in the spiritual-scientific research of the Austrian scientist Rudolf Steiner, conceives man/woman as a three-fold being of spirit, soul, and body whose capacities unfold in three developmental stages: early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence. Waldorf schools educate the whole human being--head, heart, and…

Shows how Waldorf methodology, an approach advocating learning as a cooperative venture and nurturing the creative and the artistic, helped a fourth grade teacher inspire a normally uncooperative class to learn fractions. A story involving a young farmer struggling to feed his horses properly was used and accompanied by the children's own…

Teachers in Fort Howard, Maryland, adopted a planning wheel to keep teachers' content area central and allow integration of logical, natural elements of associated course content. The planning wheel has become a useful organizer for curriculum development, individual teacher planning, and team planning across daily lessons or at the unit level.…

Presents 10 models providing a solid foundation for designing curricula that help students make valuable connections while learning. Beginning with exploration within single disciplines (the fragmented, connected, and nested models), and continuing with models integrating across several disciplines, the continuum ends with models operating within…

Just because an activity crosses subject matter lines does not make it worthwhile; it must also accomplish important educational goals. Learning activities should be educationally significant or desirable even without the integration feature. Activities should also foster, rather than disrupt or nullify, major goals in each subject area. (MLH)

Transitional outcome-based education lies in the twilight zone between traditional subject matter curriculum structures and planning processes and the future-role priorities inherent in transformational OBE. Districts go through incorporation, integration, and redefinition stages in implementing transitional OBE. Transformational OBE's guiding…

Outcome-based education is rooted in earlier ideas, such as Tyler's objectives, Spady's outcomes, Glaser's criterion-referenced measurement, Bloom's mastery learning, 1970s accountability concerns, and the 1960s competency-based education movement. Minnesota's experience suggests various practical implementation challenges concerned with…

Current proclamations to reform schools with national examinations related to a national curriculum are a reflection of ignorance and destined to fail. We need to address educational improvement with seriousness and complexity and reconsider workplace structure, curriculum character, teaching practices, and the forms used to appraise our quality…

To enculturate the young and help them reason successfully, teachers need appropriate pedagogical and school renewal skills. An interview-based survey disclosed chronic prestige deprivation in the teacher education enterprise, lack of program coherence, theory-practice separation, and stifling bureaucratic regulations. Three promising…

Without profession-based quality control, well-meaning legislators are actually reducing the quality of our nation's teachers by implementing alternative certification laws allowing individuals with no preparation except a college degree to become teachers. Until teachers are well educated and carefully licensed, education reform will not succeed.…

Goodlad discusses his comprehensive plan for reforming undergraduate teacher education, abolishing state-mandated courses, instituting state examinations modeled after law and medicine exams, and creating unified faculty groups devoting primary attention to teacher education. First, some basic changes in organization, student-teacher placement and…

The Teacher Education and Learning to Teach (TELT) study examined not only preservice and inservice programs but also induction programs and alternative teaching routes. Findings are summarized for subject matter knowledge, accommodation of diverse learners, mentoring, alternative certification programs, preservice programs, and improvement of…

The portable Program for Learning Competent Teaching, also known as the "block" or "trailer" program, is a Flagstaff School District/Northern Arizona University joint effort focused on experience, integrated coursework, total immersion, and professionalism. The program thrives because it bridges everyday experience and ideas. (MLH)

Faculty members of the University of Illinois' College of Education and teachers in the Urbana School District are collaborating to improve elementary teacher education. Key elements of the program's Language and Literacy block are its integrated, holistic approach to language instruction and reliance on classroom videotapings to improve student…