British Commonwealth universities inherited the class system for classifying degrees. However, increasing global marketization has brought with it increasing demands for student exchanges, particularly with universities in North America. Hence, Commonwealth universities are considering adopting grade point averages (GPAs) for degree classification…

This report reviews the research and literature on the improvement of college teaching through use of a model that stresses a supportive teaching culture and helps motivate individual faculty members to improve their teaching by utilizing a variety of sources of informative feedback. The sources include: colleagues and consultants, department…

This book contains 17 papers, chosen from those presented within the last 2 years at the annual National Conference on Creating the Quality School, hosted by the Center for the Study of Small/Rural Schools at the University of Oklahoma. The papers are grouped into three sections: leadership for school improvement; classroom practices for school…

This study sought a better understanding of faculty culture and was designed to allow faculty to describe their own cultural experience through a series of structured interviews. Fifty faculty members at three universities were asked to voice their beliefs about faculty culture, particularly in regard to faculty stratification (perception of…

Across OECD countries, governments are seeking policies to make education more effective while searching for additional resources to meet the increasing demand for education. The 2009 edition of "Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators" enables countries to see themselves in the light of other countries' performance. It provides a rich,…

This guide, which is intended for human resources personnel, industry trainers, educators working in industry, and others interested in learning in the workplace, presents practical guidelines for maximizing the benefits of learning on the job by creating an effective learning environment in the workplace. Discussed in the introduction are key…

This paper considers the question of faculty as "community." The study examined community-building efforts at one institution, which had been initiated in response to negative outside judgment about faculty effectiveness and that threatened the continued existence of the teacher preparation program. A "community committee" survey asked 32 faculty…

This report describes a study of the effects of environmental complexity on managers of semipublic organizations, in particular, school principals. Although some previous empirical studies do estimate relationships between principals' management activities and individual elements of schools' immediate organizational contexts, researchers have yet…

A study examining school violence surveyed 819 students in grades 8, 10, and 11 in a rural secondary school in 1997 and 1999. Student feelings toward school safety were not significantly different in the 2 years. However, there was a significant decline in feeling safe at home, which may be a catalyst for future school problems. (Contains 24…

This paper reviews Iceland's performance in skills accumulation against the backdrop of a rapidly changing economic environment and discusses directions for further improvements. Since the late 1990s, the government has considerably raised expenditure on education, which is now among the highest in the OECD relative to GDP. Nonetheless, Iceland…

This study, which examined the curricular decision making of student teachers, links research on the socialization of preservice teacher education with work focusing on socialization in the workplace. Interviews were conducted with four student teachers during their student teaching experience and 1 year after it. Curriculum materials used by the…

This publication replaces the "Guidelines for Middle Schools in Virginia," which were published in 1978-79. The document describes desirable educational practices for early adolescents. It applies to grades 6, 7, and 8 in all Virginia schools, and contains 22 specific recommendations for implementation. Sections describe the…

Poses an interesting analogy by considering the university as a constitutional entity with the faculty as its "citizens." Argues that elimination of tenure is an abrogation of the rights, and responsibilities of those citizens. Posits tenure as a stabilizing counterbalance to the often arbitrary actions of the administration. (MJP)

School culture has recently emerged as a framework for the study and interpretation of the structure and development of schools. This paper reviews a work culture productivity model and reports the development of a culture instrument. The use of second-order component analysis shows areas of generalization across primary factors. The School Work…

This report discusses the structural conditions under which organizational development (OD), as employed in the school systems of the United States and Canada, is more or less applicable to schools. The first section (chapters 1-6) reviews papers and books, concerning either OD in general or the ways in which the ideas of OD have been used in the…