The Pittsburgh-Based Project To Train Educational R & D Personnel. Research Training Through a Multiple System Consortium, Paper Number 1.

The Learning Research and Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh, as part of a consortium of 15 educational agencies, is the prime contractor for a project to design, conduct, and diffuse training programs for educational R & D personnel. Four training programs in the areas of curriculum development and the design and conduct of local educational change programs are under development and test. Each area includes one short term program (6-week institute) and one long term program (two or three years). This document--an introduction to the training program--is followed by five papers that focus on the program of training in the design and conduct of local educational change programs. (For three of these papers see EA 004 409-411.) The choice of these training programs for special attention was made with the considerations that (1) the payoff of educational innovation is found in improvements in local instructional programs and (2) the utilization of innovations is the responsibility of school systems viewed as the consumers of innovations usually developed elsewhere. (Author)