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This group-oriented workbook for teachers and administrators is a three stage guide to program planning, development, and evaluation. The first stage consists of identifying and ranking areas of concern in terms of value to students, staff, community or school board, and program. A learner goal needs assessment instrument, and a formal statement of ten educational goals (developed by the state of Pennsylvania) are presented as exercises for empirically describing areas of concern. During the intermediate stage, needs are converted into goals, and procedures for evaluating goal attainment are outlined. Evaluation is broadly defined to include affective, psychomotor, social, and cognitive needs. Charts for selecting tests related to the ten educational goals and for collecting and analyzing data are included. The final stage involves writing program objectives to reflect previously stated goals. Four teaching methods are described for achieving objectives: (1) reception--lecture method; (2) interpersonnal--class discussion; (3) selection--discovery learning; and (4) group processes. (CP)

An important target in the understanding of the pathogenesis of acute myeloid leukemias (AML) relies on deciphering the molecular features of normal and leukemic hemopoietic progenitors. In particular, the analysis of the mechanisms involved in the regulation of cell proliferation is decisive for the establishment of new targeted therapies. To gain further insight into this topic we report herein a novel approach by analyzing the role of HERG K+ channels in the regulation of hemopoietic cell proliferation. These channels, encoded by the human ether-a-go-go-related gene (herg), belong to a family of K, channels, whose role in oncogenesis has been recently demonstrated. We report here that herg is switched off in normal peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMNC) as well as in circulating CD34(+) cells, however, it is rapidly turned on in the latter upon induction of the mitotic cycle. Moreover, herg appears to be constitutively activated in leukemic cell lines as well as in the majority of circulating blasts from primary AML. Evidence is also provided that HERG channel activity regulates cell proliferation in stimulated CD34(+) as well as in blast cells from AML patients. These results open new perspectives on the pathogenetic role of HERG K+ channels in leukemias.