A la fin des annees cinquante et au debut des annees soixante, la province de Quebec etait confrontee a l'imperieux probleme d'adapter son systeme scolaire aux nouveaux besoins de son industrie et de son commerce. Une commission Royale d'enquete sur l'etat de l'enseignement dans la province du Quebec ou Commission Parent etait chargee d'etudier l'etendue du phenomene et de proposer des solutions. Au terme de son mandat la Commission Parent (1961-1966) recommandait aux responsables politiques de la province de Quebec de faire de l'enseignement polyvalent la cle de voute du renouveau scolaire. La recommandation centrale de la Commission Parent s'accompagnait de nombreuses propositions d'accompagnement et de soutien. Les commissaires recommandaient, tout d'abord, de faire de l'objet technique, du projet et de l'option l'unite d'apprentissage autour desquels s'articuleraient une mosaique de notions, de concepts et de principes; scientifiques, techniques, artistiques et linguistiques de difficultes varies. Ensuite, les commissaires recommandaient de faire du groupe-option ou groupe-matiere l'unite pedagogique stable dans laquelle se cotoieraient des apprenants de plusieurs branches, profils, filieres et voies. Enfin les commissaires recommandaient d'amener les meilleurs apprenants dans les ateliers et les laboratoires de l'ecole secondaire polyvalente afin qu'ils y acquierent une solide formation humaniste, technique et democratique. Une formation de producteur, de cooperateur, de consommateur, de citoyen et de gentilhomme chretien. La mise en oeuvre de ces recommandations exigeaient comme prealables a toutes initiatives: (a) un decloisonnement complet, des sacteurs, des programmes, des niveaux et des matieres existantes; (b) une selection des objets techniques qui devaient former l'infrastructure du programme d'etudes institutionnel polyvalent; (c) une selection des valeurs a vehiculer dans l'enseignement. La mise en ouvre de cette reforme du systeme scolaire quebecois exigeait aussi: de l'argent, un corps professoral forme aux methodes actives, au tutorat et a l'orientation des apprenants; un corps administratif familiarise avec la gestion des ecoles polyvalentes et cooperatives; des ecoles et des locaux adaptes a l'enseignement polyvalent. Cette recherche qui est une analyse evaluative sommative vise a mettre en lumiere: (a) l'objectif des reformateurs Quebecois, (offrir a tous, les elements d'une culture humaniste et technique); (b) le but atteint par la reforme, (un enseignement humaniste offert au plus grand nombre); (c) les defis de l'avenir, (offrir a chacun les elements d'une culture humaniste et technique adaptee a ses gouts, a ses talents et a son rythme personnel d'apprentissage). Cette evaluation sommative fondera son opinion critique sur l'analyse systhematique des ecrits et des faits saillants qui ont marque la naissance, l'implantation et la mise en oeuvre des caracteristiques de l'enseignement polyvalent de niveau secondaire au Quebec. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

No description available.

No description available.

The focus of this study is to explore the implementation of a proposed self-assessment framework in grades 6, 7 and 8. Educational assessment literature proposes a number of advantages regarding the use of self-assessment. Assessment experts recommend that it provides an excellent way of familiarizing the students with the proposed learning standards as both students and teacher must have similar understandings of the assessment criteria. Others suggest that students are also able to participate more responsibly and enthusiastically in the learning process if they have a deeper understanding of the learning goals and related standards for performance. Although self-assessment is recommended with enthusiasm in the professional teaching literature, there is little scientific research that supports its use as an assessment process in the elementary grades. The present study is exploratory in nature and examines the self-assessment process by investigating the implementation of a researcher-proposed framework for student self-assessment. Six teachers participated in this study and worked with their students to develop rubrics that were used for student self-assessment in paragraph writing. The framework included implementational steps as well as checks to ensure the validity and reliability of the process. The self-assessment process undergone by these six classes is documented and the assessment results are analyzed to determine levels of validity and reliability. In addition, the researcher has identified important factors which can impact the validity and reliability of the results. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

While government agencies and numerous education specialists have, for most of this century, tried to promote the use of integrated curricula, the application of this innovation has remained scattered and unfocused. Their lack of agreement concerning its purpose and practicality appears to be a central cause of this problem. With an unclear perception of what this innovation is, many educators find it difficult to implement and resistant to effective and widely-accepted definition and evaluation. The Ontario public school system reflects this problem. The Ministry of Education has directly promoted various forms of curriculum integration in successive stages since 1937. However, each of these initiatives has been followed by a period of retrenchment to disciplinary curricula. A trend emerges from this repeated cycle of advocation, resistance, and then reversal. To many who have implemented this innovation, curriculum integration comes to appear as a worthy endeavour in theory, but inapplicable and unworkable in practice. Nevertheless, its underlying premise, capable of being transferred into a multitude of potential benefits, remains attractive enough that the initiative is repeatedly resurrected. The objective of this thesis is to develop a more precise representation of the dynamics that affect the process of defining and implementing curriculum integration within the framework of the Ontario school system. This will be represented by an examination of both the perspectives of the Ministry, and of school administrators and teachers. This research will be undertaken through a two-phase study, coordinated through a series of innovation profiles (based on the work of Leithwood & Montgomery, 1987; and Scheirer, 1994), and will focus on the "Middle School Years" (grades 7 & 8).

The effects of the international knowledge system, the largely political internal mechanisms influencing textbook policy, and the justification of indigenously published textbooks impact on the amount of indigenous content found in textbooks. These issues do not stand alone, isolated from other conflicts and compromises over power and control. The pedagogical decision of imported or indigenous textbooks is framed by the social, historical and political climate. This study examined the differences in indigenous content between imported and indigenously published 'BRC textbooks' used in Belize. BRC language textbooks presented more Belizean culture than Nelson's New West Indian readers. BRC mathematics textbooks presented more practice exercises and fewer new concepts per lesson than CPM textbooks. The BRC textbooks are both a statement of a particular ideological perspective in a political debate over legitimate knowledge, as well as the material expression of a different educational approach and content from that of the MOE. Notably, the BRC struggle is symbolic of the debate over education as a system of reproduction or contestation of legitimate school knowledge.

University teaching and learning experiences which are characterized as unsatisfactory by many faculty and students can be more precisely defined as manifestations of poorly developed higher order thinking skills. Two hypotheses relevant to this problem are explored in this thesis. The first is that it is possible to use the characteristics of good and poor problem solvers documented in the literature as a productive way of recognizing and understanding the learning problems experienced by many university students. The second hypothesis is that the integration of the characteristics of effective problem solvers into a framework of general problem solving heuristics is a practical and effective strategy to move students along a continuum to better developed higher order thinking skills within the broader context of knowledge acquisition. The teaching strategy developed from the literature and illustrated in a case study, is designed to capitalize on the scholarship of faculty often underutilized in their teaching, by encouraging faculty to be more self-conscious in making process skills explicit in a way that is meaningful to their students. As demonstrated in the case study, it is a strategy which utilizes teaching opportunities and data sources available in the classroom situation. The results of the case study indicated that, in this case: (1) characteristics of good and poor problem solvers were observable in the classroom situation; (2) faculty could learn and use the strategy effectively in the context of discipline teaching; (3) the strategy did not seriously restrict the amount of content to be taught; (4) students did acquire skills specific to the strategy implemented; and (5) that particular areas of concern for further applications were encouraging students to actively engage in process tasks, to have more confidence in their use of reasoning as a tool and to place more emphasis on the cognitive skill of evaluation.

Many curriculum innovations introduced into schools have experienced implementation failure. From this seminal condition emerged a problem for investigation. There has been a dearth of information in the research literature on the problem of implementation, and conceptualization on the nature of this educational phenomenon is in a neophyte and disturbing state. Consequently education has a need for cogent and pervasive speculations relative to curriculum implementation. It is this need that gave rise to the purpose of the study---the formulation of a comprehensive, theoretical explanation for the process of curriculum implementation. The study did not engage in the production of empirical facts about implementation. Instead what was developed was a framework, or theoretical model, for making intelligible the facts already available. The central foundation or data base for the theoretical model was the descriptive data procured from twenty-five research studies on implementation. Additional evidence was drawn from numerous ancillary studies when further explication and elaboration was necessary to support or extend generalizations and categories emerging from the analysis of the central, descriptive data. The methodology was labelled as an interpretative-theoretical type. The methodology consisted of four fundamental, interdependent, sequenced but distinct phases. Phase one, or exploration, established the general purpose, research direction, and definitional limits of the study. The second phase was one of description. This phase required a descriptive, enumeration of twenty-five curriculum implementation studies. This, in turn, produced the foundational data base of the study. Phase three, or categorization, produced the essential and necessary categories of the curriculum implementation process. These categories emerged through abstractions and generalizations from the descriptive data base, and were supported and extended by additional evidence derived from ancillary implementation studies. The fourth stage of the study was the construction of a theoretical model that would represent the meaning of curriculum implementation. In order to accomplish this purpose, the theoretical model provided explications for the following research questions: (1) What are the component elements of curriculum implementation? (2) What is the purpose of curriculum implementation? (3) Who are the curriculum implementation actors? (4) How does implementation occur? The study concluded that the curriculum implementation process is composed of four necessary categories of essential elements; three elements of substance and one element of process. The three substantive categories were the curriculum, the user, and the organization. Each element was determined to have a particular characteristic nature relative to curriculum implementation, and each to have a particular function to perform in the process of realizing implementation goals. The process category was identified as one of planning. This was a planning process for action, or more specifically instructional action, and was characterized by the mutual interaction of the three categories of substantive curriculum implementation elements.

Abstract not available.

Abstract not available.