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Instructional product development--the purpose of which has been to create materials which produce in an identified population of users demonstrable changes in behavior, in accordance with prespecified and specific objectives--generally adheres to a pattern which includes planning, formulating, prototyping measures and materials, field testing, revising and retesting, and summative evaluation. To the project staff at the Institute for Development of Educational Activities, Inc. (IDEA), this cycle seemed worthwhile to explore in terms of producing materials which would enable groups to improve interpersonal problem-solving skills. Thus, IDEA developed materials designed to help teachers and principal work together more collaboratively and systematically in solving school problems. Field tests of the materials indicated the need for revisions, and evaluations of the program are currently formative. However, the use of product development strategies for organizational development has proven to be of value in serving as a research tool, in forcing clarification of desired outcomes and principles used to attain them, and in expanding our knowledge base with its empirical approach. (SH)

This paper describes the efforts of the author and others to develop and field-test a kit of materials and activities which an elementary school faculty might use to improve problem solving in its school and classrooms. The development of the "Problem Solving School" or "PSS" program handbook at the Institute for the Development of Educational Activities (IDEA) is discussed. The program takes 20-30 hours of faculty time and is oriented toward problem solving in the classroom and in the school as a whole. Several schools accepted the program on an experimental basis; the experiences of four such schools are discussed. Indigenous leadership of the training activities is basic, and little reliance is placed on outside consultant skills because the latter is so difficult to find and may encourage dependence. A bibliography of survey articles comparing alternative approaches to organizational change is presented. (KS)

The relationship between high schools and colleges during the 20th century has been at best a weak one. College professors and high school teachers belong to separate professional organizations, and rarely do conferences involve both types of educators together. Thus, a communication gap exists that has at its base a problem that students are complaining about everywhere -- that of a lack of relevance in the classroom. High schools are ideally supposed to prepare students for the college experience, but this cannot take place unless high school teachers realize what is to be expected of students after they go to college. To study this and related problems, a conference was held at which participants were students, faculty, and administrators from both secondary and higher education institutions. This document represents a summary of the conference proceedings. (HS)

This report describes a conference co-sponsored in April of 1972 by Educational Facilities Laboratory and the Institute for Development of Educational Activities, in which 35 educators met to seek ways of making secondary schools healthier, happier, more productive places for young people. The point was made that since America has produced a new type of adolescent to which the traditional regimented high school is inappropriate, it is necessary to develop a new type of institution to fit the modern student. Several cases illustrative of alternatives to traditional schooling are presented, indicating emphases placed upon individual needs, student choices, the social aspects of schooling, and the value of using other community institutions in addition to the school in the educational program. The final section discusses the elements involved in changing established institutions such as schools, including such matters as money, charisma, the dangers of creating fads, how to break institutional molds, new roles for teachers, leadership, and the overcoming of legal constraints. (PB)

Questions aimed at better school-community relations through identification of problems and courses of positive action were pursued at a seminar. Positive statements were presented by a citizen, a businessman, and an educator; and discussions were launched from the propositions, problems, and points raised in these papers. This report consists of the three statements in total and a summary of the discussions pertinent to them. The final section of the report enumerates the conclusions drawn from the meeting. (Author)

This report examines community attitudes about the schools and the extent of community involvement in the schools today. It discusses the role most traditional parent organizations have played and are playing in changing the schools. The report looks at the talent potential in the community at the local level and the crucial role the superintendent could play in helping to utilize that potential. The use of volunteers in schools is also considered. The technical facilities of business and industry are considered for potential use in vocational education. The report concludes with a summary and some recommendations on how the school and community could work together more effectively. (DN)

This report stresses the positive role volunteers can play in helping schools individualize instruction and motivate students. It discusses the need for a national and/or State organization to better coordinate volunteer activities in different areas. The report reveals some of the obstacles that make the use of volunteers difficult, discusses ways of dealing with these problems, and examines the relationship between teacher and volunteer. A definite structure is considered essential to both a successful volunteer program and to volunteer training. The report discusses the importance of a volunteer coordinator, the role of the volunteer in educational innovation, and the means by which a volunteer program could be monitored and evaluated. (DN)

This seminar was a thinking, writing, idea-generating conference ("think-tank") aimed at producing ideas that would be helpful to principals presently implementing a flexible modular schedule and to those contemplating such scheduling for the near future. Participants agreed that flexible scheduling cannot be considered seriously except in combination with other closely related innovations as it is only one item within a cluster of interdependent, interrelated innovative practices. (Author/MLF)

This report summarizes the dialogues and debates of 27 secondary school principals who discussed at length the emerging problems of providing a pertinent education for young people. Among the topics discussed are a description of a relevant curriculum according to students and teachers; the teachers' roles in student teacher relationships; effects of grading on students; gaining community support; student rights; and ways to change the school environment. (Photographs may reproduce poorly.) (Author/MLF)

The papers in this monograph review the literature and summarize recent research findings on factors affecting educational change in the public schools. The authors also report the reactions of several principals who have attempted to implement significant educational innovation in their schools. In the opening chapter, Kenneth A. Tye uses a systems model to discuss equilibrium, resistance, and strategies that facilitate change. Next, Mary M. Bentzen discusses the demands that accompany the principal's role, the conflicts he faces, and how these demands and conflicts might be channeled and resolved. Robert L. Sinclair examines the expression, requirements, and determinants of leadership behavior. Jerrold M. Novotney's chapter describes methods for achieving optimum staff involvement and cooperation in change efforts. In the final chapter, Donald A. Myers discusses the roles of the principal and of his teachers in the decision-making process. Lillian K. Spitzer prepared the annotated bibliography on change which contains 65 recent citations. (Author and JH)

This bibliography (partially annotated) lists 206 magazine articles, films, books, and pamphlets on individualizing instruction. Two sections pertain specifically to individualized instruction in various subject areas and to tactics and strategies for individualizing instruction--nongrading and continuous progress; grouping, flexible scheduling, and team teaching; and computer-assisted and programed instruction. (LP)

The Anglo-American Conference on Education for the Less Privileged was held recently in Oxfordshire, England. Fourteen representatives from the United States met with 11 British conferees. The purpose of the conference was to examine the present character and availability of education (preprimary to 18 years), including vocational and technical education, for the less-privileged elements of the populations of the United States and Britain respectively, excluding the physically handicapped, but including immigrants, racial minorities, others with a language problem, and those handicapped by backgrounds of poverty, ignorance, or indifference; to consider its adequacy or shortcomings in overcoming such difficulties and handicaps and providing a fair opportunity for all in life in a modern society; and, to indicate the lines on which provision of education for the less privileged should be improved in scale, organization, and content. The conference members agreed on the need for consistent and long-range planning in education for the less privileged. They accented the importance of teaching basic knowledge, while advocating the development of a close relationship among school, parents, and community. They stressed the importance of special, practical, and continuous training for teachers of the disadvantaged. (Author/JM)

Following an opening statement explaining the importance of small groups as an educational innovation, the author examines seven different types of groups, their organization and function. 1) The task group involves students in many types of meaningful work, with each member able to make a useful contribution towards the completion of the task. 2) The didactic group has the teacher or leader presenting material with the purpose of informing, reviewing or clarifying. 3) The tutorial group puts the emphasis on individual instruction, usually of a remedial nature. 4) The discursive group provides for free and uninhibited discussion by students of a topic of prime importance to them, with the teacher in the role of interested observer. 5) The brainstorming group is problem or solution centered, without criticism, and the teacher's role is to motivate, to get the ball rolling, and then to stay out. 6) The heuristic group places the emphasis on inquiry and discovery, and is intended to make students skillful askers of questions. 7) The maieutic group uses the Socratic method to determine the answer to a question through the open and honest exchange of informed opinion. (MBM)

An I/D/E/A Symposium was conducted to ask newly trained teachers to evaluate their preparation after they had had an opportunity to apply it in the classroom. The symposium participants were all elementary schoolteachers who had just completed their fourth month of teaching, had graduated from teacher training institutions in June 1967, and had been recommended by their preparing institutions as outstanding graduates. Jerome Bruner, director of the Center for Cognitive Studies, Harvard University, was symposium chairman. The proceedings of the symposium indicated that "if feedback from beginning teachers is a reliable source then it is very apparent that what is being done in the colleges of education has little relation to the on-the-job requirements of elementary teachers." Twelve recommendations regarding teacher training evolved. (SG)

A symposium of industrial, governmental, and academic leaders was held to consider new technological devices and systems and to develop guidelines for teachers and school administrators on how to prepare for the coming age of technology in education. Topics under consideration included educational objectives, the historical and sociological background for the technological revolution in education, the need for the development and implementation of systems for general access to the collections of major libraries, and the potential applications in education of various scientific advancements, particularly in the realm of computers. Computers hold great promise as a means of individualizing instruction. But computer-assisted instruction is still in the experimental stage, and its widespread use in elementary and secondary schools remains some years away. Computerizing American schools will be an extremely expensive venture, with a large portion of the outlays going toward the purchase of machinery and the development of programs to be used. Complete re-education of teachers and school administrators will be necessary to enable them to cope with the evaluation and selection of computer-input material. The specific role of the teacher is yet to be defined. Much research needs to be done on the learning process, considering not only how to teach children, but what to teach them. (BB)

The small-group process is discussed in relation to its use as a teaching method; the objections to and advantages of small groups are enumerated, and numerous group interaction diagrams are listed. Also, various exercises and guidelines for successful group application are presented. A final section is devoted to the different kinds of groups and their special application to certain teaching methods and subject matter. Groups listed are the open-discussion group, the tutorial group, the assigned-roles group, the research group, the task flexibility group, the investigative group, the heuristic mode, the group talk model, the brainstorming group, the socratic-analysis group, the value-clarifying group, and the colloquium. A small group bibliography is included. (JB)

Presented is a summary of a national seminar convened to propose guidelines for schools to follow in instituting K-12 environmental studies. Included is the outline of the entire K-12 program, Strand IV - Environmental and Community Health, developed for the Niskayuna School District, New York. In addition to comments by guest speakers there are sections on how to institute change in the schools, cartoons as elementary teaching aids, the major provisions of the Environmental Quality Act and related issues. The following resources are also provided: a brief annotated film list containing 16 films which deal with ecology and pollution, including information for ordering; and a list of books concerned with ecology. (PR)

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)

This monograph aims at assuring greater rationality in decisionmaking processes involving boards of education, school superintendents, principals, and teachers. The discussion begins with an analysis of the present confusion regarding who makes curriculum and instruction decisions. A theoretical framework, consistent with some of the established theories concerning formal organizations, curriculum, and decisionmaking, is then proposed to form a model that can be challenged, examined, and modified. This conceptual scheme guides the practical business of making curricular decisions in school systems, schools, and classrooms. (Author/MLF)

This monograph explores and develops the concept of nongraded schools and establishes a more precise definition for this concept. The first part of the monograph reveals the degrees to which nongrading has been bent and collapsed to accommodate grading, and interprets the values and data supporting the rationale presented for nongrading. The second section spells out a conceptual model that uses the background material provided in the first section. The concluding section addresses the problem of implementing the model by describing the engineering tasks required to implement each component of the model. (Author/MLF)

The first section of this report was the result of a seminar which brought together some experts in the field of computer-assisted instruction. It provides a comprehensive statement concerning the value of computers in today's schools, a description of the system approach to instructional technology, and an outline of the essentials of computer operation. While there was much difference of opinion among the experts on how close the computer revolution in education really is, there was general acceptance of a set of guidelines to assure reasonable, long-term development of computerized instruction and to reap the computer's vast potential for improving education. The high cost of computer technology was noted, as well as its potential for remedying instructional deficiencies. The closing discussion explored the problems of the man-machine dilemma, but offered cautious optimism toward the new technology. The second section of the report was the result of a seminar of high school and college students who had been extensively exposed to various types of technological instruction. It explored the students' reactions to language laboratories, instructional television, and emphasized the value of a good teacher in effective contact with students. (JY)

A national seminar brought together a large group of architects, teachers, and administrators who have had experience with open plan schools. The participants agreed that the open plan school system with its flexible physical arrangement and flexible teaching program holds great promise as a way of training people to think for themselves. An architect traced the history of open plan schools from the early day one-room schoolhouse to the sophisticated educational complexes of today. The seminar participants discussed both the intangible aspects of an open environment, such as individualized instruction, team teaching, student grouping, and the new role of the school administrator, and the tangible aspects of the school building and its furnishings. They emphasized that open schools are only one part of a quality education program and that the attitudes of teachers, administrators, and students must be consistent with the open nature of the physical facilities at such a school. (JY)

At an international symposium on individualized instruction, educators from America and Europe expressed their concern that the societal need for unity, cohesion, and a sense of mission is in direct conflict with the individual's need for diversity and freedom. They pointed to parents, administrators, teachers, and teacher educators as the major roadblocks to individualized instruction, and they expressed concern that conventional grade grouping was also hindering individualization. Among the other topics of discussion at the symposium were the explosion of knowledge, educational technology, mass media, individual differences, the role of the guidance counselor, the balance between individuality and conformity, and the changing curriculum. The conferees pointed to the need for developing styles of teaching based upon styles of learning, agreed that students should be confronted with a variety of learning activities, suggested that the techniques of a good first grade teacher may be models of individualization, and approved of greater use of the independent study technique. (JY)

The purpose of the national seminar reported in this booklet was to bring together a group of theoreticians and practitioners to (1) examine the present status of the nongraded school in the United States, and (2) establish guidelines for teachers and administrators who want information demonstrating how nongrading and continuous progress works in actual practice. Speakers stressed the importance of carefully defining what a nongraded school should be, and of using that definition to assess attempts to establish nongraded schools, and presented a conceptual model of the nongraded school. (NH)

This 82-item annotated bibliography contains books, pamphlets, and magazines published between 1957 and 1968 on the processes of change generally and educational change specifically. (SM)

This report contains proposals by educators for dealing with student dissension and includes accounts of actual disruptions that were satisfactorily resolved. The far-reaching social implications of some of the problems involved necessitated that this handbook incorporate practical recommendations and avoid the philosophical aspects of a larger social problem. The report discusses (1) indicators of potential student unrest; (2) emergency procedures for coping with disturbances, disorders, or demonstrations; (3) administrative procedure statements for dealing with student demonstrators; and (4) emergency school board measures. A brief bibliography is included. (Author/JF)

This booklet, the product of a second seminar on the chemical transfer of memory, summarizes the current research work presented at the seminar including future implications for education as perceived by the 12 biochemists and psychologists who participated. Developments described include 1) the memory-transfer experiments of James McConnell from which he deduced that memory was a transmittable chemical rather than a permanently morphological structure; 2) experiments by Murray Jarvic to test a theory regarding the short-lived electrochemical process (the physiological mechanism that carries the short-term memory) which triggers off a succeeding chemical process crucial to the establishment of long-term memory; 3) James McGaugh's preliminary model for the biological system by which the brain receives, holds, and releases information; 4) experiments with electroconvulsive shock and drugs to explore the time-dependent processes involved in memory trace consolidation; 5) Georges Ungar's work directed toward proving that the informational processes in the nervous system have a molecular basis as is the case with genetic information; 6) the work of Carl Haywood on the long-term memory process in the mentally retarded and of Nicholas Plotnikoff with pemoline treatment of humans. The implications section notes that while most questions remain unanswered evidence mounts which will allow learning to be transferred and memory increased through use of drugs. (JS)

The purpose of this symposium was to enable the participants to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of their teacher training after 3 to 5 years of classroom experience. They had had practically no preservice experience in being able to relate to the special problems of teenagers, employ worthwhile teaching innovations, or cope with typical daily classroom situations. The following ten recommendations for change emerged: 1) teaching opportunities to be provided in the freshman year; 2) practice teachers to work in a variety of settings; 3) methods courses to be reevaluated; 4) all education professors to spend some time teaching in secondary schools to keep in touch with the realities of the situation; 5) high school principals and supervisors to assume a more active role in helping beginning teachers; 6) closer cooperation between teacher training institutions and secondary schools to expose students to innovations; 7) special instruction in particular subject fields, including recent developments; 8) practice teachers to have "wandering time" to familiarize them with all aspects of the school's activities; 9) continuous contact of teacher trainees with high school students, in teaching and non-teaching situations; 10) colleges of education to follow up training with questionnaires and interviews to obtain feedback from recent graduates. (MBM)

The first annual Aristotle Symposium was held in Washington, D.C., in December 1967 and dealt with the potential collaboration of government, education, and industry in educational development. Task groups were concerned with the following specific areas: (1) Department of Defense programs for training of low aptitude persons (Project 100,000) and transfer of skills to civilian life (Project Transition); (2) the implications for education of new developments in media technology; (3) information technology; (4) frontiers of educational research; (5) new developments in teaching/learning technology including, in part, use of computers, teaching machines, audiovisual apparatus, trainers and simulators, and biomedical education (6) systems approach to education; (7) educational issues and evaluation; and (8) the challenge of the world educational crisis. (dm)

These presentations made at a seminar on creativity include: 1) "Creative Potential and the Educational Experience" by Sidney Parnes, a discussion of the state of the art tracing the rise of interest in creativity through the 1950's to the present; 2) "The 'Ah ha!' Experience" by James Lenowitz, a description of the creative individual as one with a low threshold of discomfort who perceives problems but has the mental stamina to wrestle with them; 3) "Creativity Through Brainstorming" by Charles Clark, a description of the technique of brainstorming giving the results of a session and describing an actual fishbowl session and the consensus arrived at as a result of it; 4) "Creative Approach to Social Problems" by Victor J. Papanek, examples of ideas originated by students to help the world with its social problems; 5) "Creativity and the Changing Environment" by Daniel E. Noble, a discussion of characteristics of the creative mind and the effects of creativity on man's technological culture; 6) "The City of Man" by Constantinos A. Doxiadis, a discussion of the role of architects and planners in making cities more human; 7) "Position Statement" of J. P. Guilford, a discussion of "creativity 20 years later" which traces his early research and reviews the structure-of-the-intellect model and its relationship to creativity. (JS)