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To develop the methodology of designing local educational change, the R & D center staff first identified four critical weaknesses leading to the failures of changes attempted in schools. These weaknesses were categorized as (1) change made without prior analysis of its effects on the whole system, (2) change imposed externally without regard to specific local needs, (3) change made for the sake of change without regard to fundamental reform, and (4) no organism within the system with specific responsibility for the design and maintenance of the change. Independently, a multicomponent closed system was modified to work within the system model to prevent the critical faults from occurring. The modification resulted in an 11-step task flow. Finally, packages of interpersonal, analytical, and information-gathering skills were developed to aid the change specialist in performing the tasks. This paper describes the development of the task flow. Related documents are EA 004 408, EA 004 410, and EA 004 411. (Author)

This paper was written in response to an article entitled "Defining the Social Studies: An Explanation of the Three Traditions" by James L. Barth and S. Samuel Shermis. The three positions portray social studies as citizenship transmission; as social science; and as reflective inquiry. These authors favor the latter position, defined as a process of decision making as to significant social problems perceived by students to be of considerable concern to them. An alternative position is proposed in this paper, namely, that the structure of economics should be an important organizing vehicle in the social studies and presents a case for a fourth tradition. The structure of a discipline should be defined as the interrelationships of its important concepts and the concepts of science as a tool for repetitive assistance to a reflective inquirer. Problems for inquiry must be selected and organized so as to lead to an understanding of such a structure. The paper concludes with a further detailing of the case for economics education, pointing out the essential nature of the need for more citizens to understand and apply economic concepts in individual, business, political, and societal matters. (Author/SJM)

This document contains abstracts of papers presented during the 93 sessions of the 1969 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. The papers use a wide variety of research approaches and techniques to investigate such topics as teacher characteristics and behavior, the learning process in various settings, curriculum development, student achievement, testing methods, cognitive development, instructional technology, individual differences, problem solving, and political and administrative influences on educational outcomes. A list of program participants is included. Related documents are EA 002 792, EA 002 793, and EA 002 794. (JH)

A paper presenting the objectives of the National Association of Black Adult Educators is given. The association was formed to take action to seek and implement pragmatic solutions to the problem of the exclusion of blacks and other minorities from the decision making process in American society. Specific objectives include: (1) To provide a permanent organization for all Adult Educators in the United States of America, (2) To provide meaningful involvement of blacks in the activities of the major professional organizations, (3) To encourage the employment of blacks as directors and supervisors of Adult Education programs at national, state, and local levels, (4) To encourage the employment of blacks as deans, directors, and professors at the colleges and universities, (5) To design and implement quality ethnic oriented programs with special emphasis placed on reducing racial tension, promoting legal justice, and promoting cultural and economic awareness, (6) To design relevant training programs for teachers, administrators, paraprofessional and peer-teachers involved in projects dealing with minority group education, (7) To develop racial/ethnic curriculum materials, (8) To promote agreement with Federal Agencies to perform contract monitoring, evaluation, and research services on projects relating to minority education, and (9) To promote fellowship among members. (Author/CK)

This document is a collection of three papers: (1) "Some Variables Why So Few Black High School Graduates Attend Post-High School Area Vocational Schools," by Max Farning, (2) "The Role of Simulation in Teaching Complex Problem Solving Skills," by Curtis R. Finch and Patrick A. O'Reilly, and (3) "Investigation of the Effectiveness of a Design to Initiate Curriculum Change," by Mary Bach Kievit. Farning concludes that two variables have influenced the low enrollment rate of blacks: (1) negative attitudes toward blue collar employment, and (2) lack of knowledge about post-secondary area vocational schools. Finch and O'Reilly analyze the effectiveness of dynamic simulation as a means of teaching troubleshooting and discuss several implications for state-level vocational education planning, local utilization of simulators, and minimization of individual differences between students. Kievit considers a design for curriculum change based on teacher workshops. (BH)

A central concern of educational innovation is making instruction relevant to the needs and learner characteristics of individual students generally and of special subpopulations of students in particular. Current schooling often involves inappropriate learning goals, ineffectual curricular and instructional materials, discriminatory organization for instruction, and authoritarian and hostile social/emotional school climates. The participants in the training programs concerned with local educational change were introduced to the concerns for relevance as related to teaching problem-solving thinking, stressing personal/social development, organizing and conducting instruction for mastery of learning tasks, and individualizing instruction. The training programs stressed that students, instructional staff, administrative staff, and community members should be involved in the developmental, the implementation, and the evaluate stages of the local educational programs. The long term program offered intensive training for leadership in designing and conducting change programs meant to increase the relevance of instruction offered inner-city children. Related documents are EA 004 408, EA 004 409, and EA 004 411. (Author)

The Public Law enacted in 1971 requires that fundamental subject matter areas taught in Wisconsin's public schools be assessed. It is proposed in this paper that assessment of the State's social studies programs needs to focus its attention on the school environment, which educators can and should control, change, and improve, rather than assessing student performance or on breaking social studies into component parts. In essence, evaluation procedures need to focus on the cultural environment; i.e. what the schools are doing to provide quality educational experiences and opportunities permitting examining, questioning, and testing evidence and beliefs, which influence the thought and actions of students and which contribute to the social studies goal of increasing human understanding. When assessment focuses on academic achievement of students it only measures the circumstances of birth and social situation. Three questions describing the existing pattern of social studies experience are: 1) What opportunities are provided by teachers to involve students in the action of problematic inquiry? 2) What is the role of student and teacher in social study? and 3) Do the methods and materials of social studies instruction maintain the integrity of the social disciplines? (SJM)

This position paper indicates that, human survival depends upon a major change in humanistic values or the way we view our relationship to the world. Education must go through reform from within that includes the adoption of a K-12, transdisciplinary, problem-solving curriculum. And must, also, offer students environmentally sound alternatives to the uncertain future they face, in an educational environment that is humanized. With the focus of environmental education on human behavior and the interaction of it with the total environment, the learning setting will change to include the community-at-large. The plan developed by the Northwest Environmental Education Center (NEEC), with state funding, provides for the implementation of environmental education programs on a number of levels: community or district level, the county level, and the regional or inter-county level. Teacher training within each of 38 districts will be given the highest priority for the purpose of establishing a hierarchy of environmental specialists to function in each district. Intensive training of a cadre of teachers from each district will permit inservice training. The pilot project at Sedro Woolley School District is cited here at length and in SO 002 249. (Author/SBE)

Although critical thinking is a pervasive educational objective, it remains inconsistently and imperfectly defined. The present paper attempts to sort out direct attempts at defining critical thinking. Such definitions are classified as representing one of three differing points of view: critical thinking as evaluation, critical thinking as problem solving, and critical thinking as a pluralistic act. (Author)

TO DETERMINE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DOGMATISM AND PERFORMANCE AS MEASURES OF PROBLEM SOLVING ABILITY IN EXTENSION AGENTS, A STUDY WAS MADE OF 486 AGENTS AND 23 SUPERVISORS IN FIVE STATES. AGENTS RESPONDED TO MAILED QUESTIONNAIRES AND THEIR SUPERVISORS RETURNED PERFORMANCE RATINGS. THE DEGREE OF OPEN-MINDEDNESS WAS MEASURED ON THE ROKEACH DOGMATISM SCALE AND PERFORMANCE SCORES WERE MEASURED BY RATINGS BY THE SUPERVISORS USING THE LAWSHE KEPHART PERSONNEL COMPARISON SYSTEM. AN INVERSE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LEVEL OF DOGMATISM AND PERFORMANCE WAS INDICATED. IT WAS MOST STRONGLY ASSOCIATED WITH MIDDLE AGED AGENTS, AND THOSE WITH LESS THAN A MASTER'S DEGREE. A SLIGHT POSITIVE RELATIONSHIP WAS SHOWN BETWEEN AGE AND DOGMATISM, AND A STRONG NEGATIVE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN LEVEL OF EDUCATION AND DOGMATISM. ANALYSIS ALSO SUGGESTED THAT AGENTS LOW IN DOGMATISM WERE RATED HIGHER IN PERFORMANCE THAN AGENTS HIGH IN DOGMATISM REGARDLESS OF THE DEGREE OF DOGMATISM OF THE SUPERVISOR. THIS PAPER WAS PRESENTED AT THE NATIONAL SEMINAR ON ADULT EDUCATION RESEARCH, CHICAGO, FEBRUARY 11-13, 1968. (RT)

A TEST WAS MADE OF THE THEORY THAT THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN A REGION OF COMMUNITIES WOULD BE MORE HEALTHY AND PRODUCTIVE AS THE CONDITIONS OF INTER-COMMUNITY ACCEPTANCE, TRUST, INTERDEPENDENCE, AND COOPERATIVENESS INCREASED. TEAMS OF THREE TO FIVE LEADERS FROM EACH OF 18 SUBURBAN COMMUNITIES ATTENDED SEMI-MONTHLY SEMINARS, DIAGNOSED CHANGES NEEDED TO GAIN CITIZEN INVOLVEMENT, AND PLANNED STRATEGIES FOR CHANGE. GOALS WERE DEFINED AS A MORE ADEQUATE FLOW OF INFORMATION BETWEEN COMMUNITIES, MORE OPPORTUNITIES FOR TRAINING, AND INCREASED INTEREST AND PARTICIPATION OF CITIZENS. AN INTER-COMMUNITY TEAM WAS FORMED AND ASSUMED RESPONSIBILITY FOR INITIATING MOVEMENT TOWARD THE REGIONAL GOALS. IT WAS FOUND THAT THOSE CITIZENS WITH A HIGH LEVEL OF PARTICIPATION IN THE PROJECT DEVELOPED MORE POSITIVE AND OPTIMISTIC PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR OWN COMMUNITIES AND INCREASED THEIR READINESS TO WORK WITH CITIZENS FROM OTHER COMMUNITIES. (APPENDED ARE TABLES, CHARTS, AND QUESTIONNAIRES.) THIS PAPER WAS PRESENTED AT THE NATIONAL SEMINAR ON ADULT EDUCATION RESEARCH, CHICAGO, FEBRUARY 11-13, 1968. IT ALSO APPEARS IN LETTER TO SCHOOLS, VOLUME 20, NUMBER 4, MARCH 1968, PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, BUREAU OF SCHOOL SERVICES. (RT)

Most materials on value clarification techniques have been written by professionals working at university schools of education. To examine value clarification from another view, to see what difficulties teachers are having in translating new techniques into classroom realities, an eighth grade social studies teacher relates his classroom experiences while developing techniques discussed by Louis Raths and his co-authors in "Values and Teaching". Raths approaches value clarification with a seven-part valuing process which encourages children to prize one's beliefs and behaviors, to choose one's beliefs and behaviors, and to act on one's beliefs. Methods for implementing these steps emphasize the clarifying response and value sheets. The teacher's experiences with both of these techniques reflect several problems and pitfalls of their use in the classroom situation. A basic problem confronted in using the techniques is the extent of neutrality or direction on the part of the teacher. Student-teacher relations as affected by the techniques are considered. Systematic measure of the effects in the classroom are closely considered and means for accomplishing meaningful recordkeeping are suggested and developed. (Author/KSM)

Grievance arbitration is utilized on a nearly universal basis, but the process is malfunctioning in several ways. The study was based on a review of the literature, in field interviews, and in-depth correspondence with knowledgeable management and union practitioners; findings are limited to the arbitration step in contract administration. Twenty points of indictment of grievance arbitration and arbitrators were compiled and specific remedies were suggested, with a consensus being reached on some points and substantial disagreement ensuing from other points. Consensus included: desirability of shorter opinions stressing reasoning behind awards; urging arbitrators to take firm charge of hearings; charging of a reasonable fee if hearing is cancelled; a shortage exists of competent and experienced arbitrators; scepticism regarding the utility of submission arguments; and negative attitudes on some proposed reforms. Pre-arbitration suggestions include: that arbitrators receive pertinent information in advance, and that unreasonable delay in scheduling defeats one of the fundamental purposes of grievance arbitration. Greater arbitrator initiative, additional practitioner contributions to improving the process, and joint efforts by practitioners, arbitrators, and designating agencies toward continued improvement of the grievance arbitration process are recommended. A list of practitioner rights of expectation from the arbitrator is presented. (SC)

It is suggested that because of the tendency of psychologists to characterize behavioral phenomena in distinctive ways, it is frequently difficult to determine if the same label is being used to refer to the same phenomenon by different investigators. One strategy to overcome this problem is to determine if similar conclusions are reached when the same dependent variable is manipulated by various investigators operating under different paradigms. This strategy is applied to the construct of verbal mediation. Three different paradigms are presented. Two major findings tend to recur: (1) overt verbal behavior appears to be correlated with various types of problem-solving behavior which continues to occur even after the verbal behavior has become internalized; and (2) there exists a period when, although the appropriate verbal responses are in the individual's repertoire, they do not serve a mediating function. It is suggested that the theorist-researchers reviewed are dealing with basically the same phenomenon. Several generalizations concerning the development of the verbal mediation process are abstracted, and several implications for the area of education are discussed. (Author)

The relationship between instruction and transfer was studied to determine if tests of transfer would influence evaluation of instruction differently than tests of learning of specifics. Subjects were 120 fourth graders of average intelligence. The children were randomly assigned to one of the following groups: (1) rule treatment, (2) specific instructions treatment, (3) answered problem treatment, or (4) control group. The three experimental groups were given the same problems to solve and only the problem solving instructions were different. There were no statistically significant differences in competence in solving the specific problems among the three groups, but the rule treatment group produced the greatest degree of transfer. It was concluded that to attain the general goal of transfer, instruction associating rules with problems was preferrable to instruction which focused upon the problems without rules. Recent work lends strong support to this conclusion, but it has also been found that the level of performance on both learning and transfer tasks depends heavily on the particular tasks involved. Findings of the present study indicate the need to include transfer tests to measure outcomes of instruction if instructional goals include affecting students behavior in contexts other than those in which they were learned. (RSM)

The educational applications of computers for instruction, administration, and vocational guidance are herein reviewed. Reports on recent trends in computer-assisted instruction and computer-managed instruction toward forming behavioral objectives and reducing learning time and implementation costs provide an introduction for a description of the Office of Education's proposed program, a Computer Utility for Educational Systems (CUES). The CUES program; designed to provide demonstration centers of feasible and economic computer applications (including administrative data processing, a course in computer technology, integrated problem solving, and vocational training) is defined at some length, and the problems and costs of implementing computer systems are discussed. Next, the value of computers in career decision processes and in individualizing instruction (including the development of sequenced behavioral objectives) is illustrated through references to projects. Finally, barriers to change are examined and a case is presented for the utilization of a systems approach to effect educational improvement. A bibliography is included. (SP)

As funded from July 1967 to June 1968 by the Bureau of Work Programs, Operation Mainstream called for employing 120 community aides from the rural poor of the three most northern counties of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, who were to be trained in counseling and problem solving skills. A staff of part time resource development consultants from the University of Maine developed the program; and supervision was provided by the community action agencies. Experiencing confusion and frustrations caused by lack of training, late funding, and problems of great distances, and facing a continual flow of debilitating crises, it was decided to identify the concepts underlying the program as well as planning and implementing it. It was decided to use a rational-emotional, individualized approach to training in problem solving; unique to this Mainstream project, aides were not only to be trained for increased employability but also were to have a client group; there was to be individual responsibility for learning, an evolutionary model of programing, role modeling the consultant on problem solving, and the right to fail; and it is hoped that the evaluation phase will become an ongoing phase. Despite its trials, it is felt that Operation Mainstream is overtly becoming a success. (nl)

This report describes school and departmental changes that supported newly stated goals in a junior high school that departed radically from its traditional program. New goals for this particular school focused on the individual, and program agents were charged with helping each student (1) become his own agent, (2) become personally involved in his learning, (3) develop confidence in himself and others, and (4) find true satisfaction in learning. Data were obtained from informal interviews with both administrators and teachers and from an examination of pertinent school documents. Discussed are scheduling changes, class organization and content, grade reports, noncredentialed personnel utilization, teacher role change, student initiated classes, and time and energy demands on the staff. (MLF/Author)

At this seminar, educational practitioners and researchers affirmed that school curricula must be redesigned to teach the student to reason, explore, and discover for himself. The seminar participants discussed innovations currently available and the steps that should be taken by elementary schools to supplant the teaching of facts with instruction in problem solving skills. Several participants presented position statements on emerging practices in education that bode well for the educational advancement of young learners. These statements and subsequent discussions are summarized under topics having particular implications for student-centered schooling in the coming years. (Author)

A discussion of traditional approaches to design forms the basis for the presentation of a methodology for architectural design. In particular, the sequence of analysis-synthesis-evaluation is given as being indicative of most design approaches. Variations of this sequence are examined and the importance of correctly ordering parts of any methodology is adopted as a major concern. The proposed methodology is viewed in terms of sequence and has the following elements--(1) recognition of existence of a problem, (2) definition of problem, (3) collection and analysis of pertinent information, (4) synthesis of information into possible configurations, (5) selection of a solution, (6) implementation of solution, and (7) re-evaluation of solution. Necessary aspects of this system which require particular approaches are dealt with in a review of value systems, activity prediction means, and environmental control principles. (RS)

This report presents a collection of position papers and mission statements and traces the ways in which these papers contributed to an orderly sequence of events that resulted in the choosing of the Laboratory mission. Position papers cover the areas of full education, curriculum, instructional methods, and teacher education. The alternative mission proposals, which evolved from these position papers, cover the areas of (1) personnel requirements and educational change, (2) teacher education, (3) the interaction of educational variables, (4) teacher training product assessment, (5) the goals of education, and (6) communication and information services. The "Laboratory Mission Comparison Scale," used to compare the six proposals and to make a selection, is included. (Pages 59-97 and 164-306 may reproduce poorly.) (JF)

A quality program of education within the schools produces individuals capable of (1) using their talents and abilities to the maximum of their potential, (2) continuing their educational development, (3) participating actively and positively in the world of work, (4) engaging in problem solving at abstract and at concrete levels, and (5) developing a positive pattern of values. Ten keys to quality education so defined are high quality staffs, programs designed to maximize the educational attainment of all the people in the community, specialized personnel and instructional services, modern instructional media, experimentation and innovation, systematic and organized evaluation and research, supporting services and personnel, stimulating physical facilities, community support and understanding, and adequate financial support. While substantial evidence suggests that the quality level of a school or district is directly related to the extent to which these conditions are available, the burden of proof lies in performance measures such as continuous progress, retention rates, student achievement gains, average daily attendance patterns, job preparation results, citizen responsibility and community support patterns, unemployment rates, and delinquency and divorce rates. (JH)