Positive Trends
In Learning:

Meeting the Needs
of a Rapidly
Changing World

by Dee Dickinson

About Positive Trends in Learning

Although some of the examples may have changed, the trends discussed are still current. We would like to add new examples from parenting, school, higher education, adult education, and corporate training programs. In keeping with our goal of creating a number of interactive projects we would like to have this be a collaborative effort with input from all of you in our electronic learning community.

We've begun updating this report, and appreciate the input we have received thus far. You can send e-mail by clicking on the e-mail address: building@newhorizons.org
More contact information can be found at the end of this Web page.

Go Back To: The Beginning of the Report

Introductions

Introductions and brief overview of the information contained in Positive Trends in Learning: Meeting the Needs of a Rapidly Changing World.

The Growing Diversity of Students Is Affecting Educational Planning and Practice in All Settings

It is now well recognized that all students do not learn in the same way . Teaching that is limited to strategies the teacher has found effective during his or her own education may not reach all students in ways that make it possible for them to learn. Therefore, large numbers of teachers are broadening their array of teaching strategies and renewing their enthusiasm for teaching in the process, as their students become more successful at learning.

Innovative Parent Education Programs Are Being Held in Homes, Schools, Hospitals, and Community Centers

Increasing recognition of the critical role of parents as "first teachers" has led to new efforts in parent education throughout the world. Children who enter school without the nurturing, positive, and stimulating experiences that well-informed parents can provide are usually "at risk," and the numbers of these children are rapidly increasing.

More Early Childhood Programs Are Being Planned To Be Developmentally Appropriate for Children

The current trend toward "developmental appropriateness" of early childhood education programs is increasing in strength.

Educational Systems are Changing from Outmoded Industrial Models to Ones That Are More Appropriate For Our Time

Although society has changed dramatically, the majority of traditional public schools has not. Many schools continue to predict and produce failure; however, many educators, parents, business people, and politicians are calling for change.

Thinking Skills

The kind of complex problems with which every individual and organization must deal today necessitates the development of higher order thinking processes and intelligent behavior.

Cooperative Learning

When students learn together in pairs or in small groups, learning is faster, there is greater retention, and students feel more positive about the learning process.

Arts in Education

Schools that incorporate music, art, drama, dance, and creative writing into the basic curriculum have observed improvements in student success by all measures.

Technology

Computers are providing individualized instruction in almost every subject. They are invaluable tools.

Accelerated Learning

When the process was pioneered in the schools of Bulgaria, teachers were astounded at how rapidly the children learned.

Interdisciplinary Curriculum

The schools report that the integration of subjects in larger blocks of time facilitates more profound learning, greater mastery, and the forging of meaningful connections between subjects and ideas.

Service Projects

Students learn the true meaning of a participatory democracy as they work with service projects in schools throughout the country.

Partnerships

Many types of partnerships make it possible for schools to tap into the rich resources their communities have to offer.

International and Multicultural Context

As ethnic diversity increases in our society and our schools, programs that offer learning in a multicultural and international context help students to value their own heritage and to value and appreciate people from other cultures.

Assessment

More comprehensive tests encourage teaching in greater depth, focusing on higher order thinking, and applying what has been learned in practical and creative ways.

Learning Environment

Careful thought, time. enthusiasm, and efficiency of planning can turn every school into an environment that nurtures human growth.

School-Based Management

School-based management is a learning process for all involved.

Educators are Learning New Skills and Moving Into New Roles

As major corporations put the responsibility for making decisions as close to the consumer as possible, schools are beginning to recognize that teachers, who ultimately have the responsibility of educating students, must have the power, knowledge, and expertise to make decisions regarding the best way to help students to learn.

Universities Are Developing New Ways of Preparing Teachers

Even though universities, in general, are moving slowly to implement alternatives to the lecture-discussion method of teaching, they are beginning to utilize the more dynamic and interactive processes discussed earlier in this report. Community Colleges, because of the more diverse nature of their students, are moving most rapidly.

New Technologies and Research Help Reach Adults More Effectively

Adult literacy and education programs are utilizing technology along with new information on human learning & development.

Lifelong Learning Opportunities For Elders

Education programs for senior citizens are increasing in number and variety

Community Centers Bring Lifelong Learning Opportunities

Community learning centers are providing new resources for lifelong learning.

New Centers Support Research

New kinds of research and development centers for education are emerging, sponsored by a variety of agencies and the Federal government..

Conclusion: Metatrends in Learning Are Emerging

If all countries could join together in the creation of educational systems appropriate for the human enterprise, there might be a very different kind of world.

About the Author

Positive Trends in Learning:

Meeting the Needs of a Rapidly Changing World

by Dee Dickinson

Introduction

1. Letter to readers from Betty L. McCormick
2. Foreword by Arthur L. Costa
3. Introduction by Dee Dickinson

Letter to Readers

Dear Reader:

     In the years since the "Nation At Risk" was published, hundreds 
of reports have been written deploring the current state of 
education in the United States. It is very easy to be critical; and 
while bringing attention to the problems, many of these reports do 
little to foster their correction.

     The following report offers a brief overview of positive trends in 
learning. It includes specific examples of successful schools and 
programs that may be visited or contacted for further information. 
We challenged the author, Dee Dickinson of New Horizons in 
Learning, to identify and make visible exemplary ideas and 
programs in order to make it possible to build upon these 
successes.

     The report avoids discussion of fads or trends that many would
consider negative. It is set in the context of lifelong learning in order
to reinforce its value for the education of students at any age and in 
any setting. Necessarily, much research, reflection, and other worthy 
examples are not included lest the report run to hundreds of pages.
The extensive bibliography refers the reader to sources of
additional information on the topics discussed. 

     At IBM Educational Systems, we continually seek examples of 
outstanding approaches to learning. Our goal is to find ways 
computer technology can help bring these approaches into 
widespread use. We hope this report stimulates your thinking 
about positive trends in learning and encourages you to persevere 
in the quest to provide all learners with meaningful educational 
experiences.

Sincerely,

Betty L. McCormick
Director, Strategy & Market Development
IBM Educational Systems

Foreword

Arthur L. Costa

California State University, Sacramento

Educational leaders make three major decisions in the process of curriculum alignment:

1. establishing the purposes, outcomes, goals and objectives of the educational enterprise;
2. designing the delivery system by which those goals will be achieved; and
3. developing procedures for monitoring, collecting evidence about, and evaluating the achievement of those goals.

Sound educational practice dictates that the first group of decisions (the goals) must drive the system. Unfortunately, what is inspected is what is expected, thus the traditional use of tests has often dictated what should be learned (the goals) and has influenced the mode of instruction (the delivery).

Numerous short-lived "innovations" have passed through the classroom, minds, budgets, and in-service programs of the educational establishment. (Last year it was clinical teaching, the year before that it was assertive discipline, preceded by management by objectives. Whatever happened to metrics?) While educators may have adopted new programs, they have seldom institutionalized that change by aligning the curriculum, instruction, school organization, and assessment to match the goals. As a result, the purposes of programs such as "modern math," "individualized instruction," or "process approaches" seldom were realized. Tests which measured low level thinking signaled low level teaching strategies which, in turn,proclaimed achievement of low level goals.

In this report, Dee Dickinson helps us realize new educational and societal goals for the next century. They are the survival skills for our children's future, for the continuity of our democratic institutions, and for our planetary existence. Such goals include the capacity for continued learning; cooperativeness and team building; precise communication in a variety of modes; appreciation of disparate value systems; problem solving requiring creativity and ingenuity; enjoyment of resolving ambiguous, discrepant, and paradoxical situations; generation and organization of an overabundance of technologically produced information; craftsmanship of product; high self-esteem; and personal commitment to larger organizational and global values.

Dee provides hope, vision, and action by synthesizing major trends and strategies in future-oriented education. She identifies numerous innovative practices in learning theory, school organization, curriculum, and classroom instructional strategies. She suggests alternative forms of authentic assessment--all of which are intended to achieve those new goals for the twenty-first century.

If these educational purposes are to be realized; if we wish to overcome the "this-too-shall-pass" syndrome, then educators must develop new capacities for empowering school staffs, community groups, administrators, legislators, board members and corporate leaders to work together. They must collaborate in the future as a basis for deriving educational goals, for continually clarifying those goals, and for operationalizing them into appropriate curriculum, instructional, and organizational practices.

Also it is essential to recognize and abandon obsolete curriculum content and to purge school systems of incompatible practices or policies, so as to lodge these goals in every facet of the school culture. or "process approaches"

Dee Dickinson challenges us to stop tinkering and start transforming education. Otherwise, ours might become a "this-too-shall-pass" society. 

Introduction

Dee Dickinson

So we stand on the brink of a new age of an open world and of a self playing its part in the larger sphere. An age when work and leisure and learning and love unite to produce a fresh form for every stage of life, and new higher trajectory for life as a whole.
-- Lewis Mumford

Nearly a hundred years ago, Maria Montessori created a small school for a group of children from the slums of Rome. Failure was predicted by her colleagues, yet within months, the children experienced the "explosions of learning" which became the hallmark of her work.

Forty years ago, Reuven Feuerstein, the Israeli cognitive psychologist, began his work with the mentally retarded who had been brought to him from the Holocaust and from impoverished parts of North Africa. He was able to teach these young people thinking skills and the processes of intelligence which helped many of them become independent and productive members of society.

Twenty years ago, Renee Fuller, a psychologist from New York, created a program for bright, dyslexic young children. The "Ball-Stick-Bird" reading program was later used successfully to teach profoundly retarded adults who had measured I.Q's as low as 30.

Today's powerful accelerated learning techniques, based on the work of Georgi Lozonof are being used successfully in both schools and corporate training programs.

Even though these educators used different processes, there were common denominators in their approaches. All these teachers believed that their students could learn. They recognized their strengths and helped them to learn through these strengths in multisensory, interactive, and dynamic ways. Three concepts form the basis of the work of these pioneers as well as that of other successful educators:

1. It Is Possible For Everyone To Learn

For many people learning can be very difficult, and it is sometimes impossible unless basic needs such as food, shelter, and love are met. The importance of positive conditions for learning is emphasized by the research of Paul MacLean, M.D., Senior Research Scientist at the National Institute of Mental Health. He points out that the Limbic System, the emotional center of the brain, is so powerful that negative emotions such as hostility, anger, fear, and anxiety can literally downshift the brain to basic, survival thinking. This can make learning very difficult, if not impossible. On the other hand, positive emotions such as trust, love, tenderness, and humor can facilitate learning and higher-order thinking processes.

Neurophysiologists such as Marian Diamond, at the University of California, Berkeley, point out the importance not only of good nutrition and physical care, but also positive, nurturing, and stimulating environments in laying the physical, mental, and emotional foundations for learning.

Since schools alone are not equipped to meet the needs of rapidly increasing numbers of children, site-based collaborations with health and social service agencies have become essential in many areas.

In today's classrooms, students with different kinds of abilities and disabilities and from different cultural, social, economic, and educational backgrounds are mainstreamed. In order for all students to learn, teachers are developing a broad array of educational methods that make it possible for students to learn through their strengths at least part of the time. The rest of the time, students have opportunities to experience and stretch into new ways of thinking and learning.

2. Everyone Can Learn More Efficiently

Many strategies have been developed to help students learn faster, with greater retention and with greater ease. Computers and interactive technology in the classroom are now being used in ways that accelerate learning; however, it is even more essential to develop our "human technology."

Today, accelerated learning and cooperative learning techniques are used with enormous success in large numbers of corporate training programs and schools. Learning time is often cut in half.

As students learn more efficiently, their teachers have more time available to motivate their interest, enthusiasm, and curiosity at the outset of any learning experience. Therefore, there is increased time to help students learn how to learn and to think about what they are learning in a variety of ways. And there is time for students to apply what they learn in thoughtful, practical, and creative ways in other contexts. These are all essential processes that, in the traditional classroom, have too often been excluded in the teacher's haste to cover required material.

As test scores rise in some basic skill areas, they are declining in the areas of comprehension, practical application, and problem-solving. More efficient ways of learning "buy" time to insure that these essential processes are also learned.

3. Everyone Can Learn To Be More Intelligent

Most schools today are not yet focused on this principle, since many educators still believe that intelligence is a static, unmodifiable structure and that intelligence cannot be taught and learned. I.Q. tests are still in general use, although they have been abandoned by some school districts on the grounds that the range of intelligence they measure is too narrow.

There is little agreement on a general definition of intelligence, but most people would agree that it involves, at least, the ability to learn and apply what has been learned. Appropriate to our time, Robert Sternberg adds further that it involves the ability to adapt to the environment, or modify the environment, or seek out and create new environments.

It is clear that there is little correlation between assessed l.Q. and what people are able to learn and do in the real world. Many cognitive researchers are proving that intelligence is, in fact, an open, dynamic system, modifiable at any age and ability level. For example, over 750 research studies based on the work of Reuven Feuerstein support his Theory of Structural Cognitive Modifiability.

Other examples of strategies that develop intelligence can be found in the work of J.T. Guilford, a psychologist who created the Structure of Intellect model. This work has been further developed by Mary Meeker and now is being successfully applied in many schools in this country and in Japan.

Interactive technology and hypermedia are tools that educators and students can use in powerful ways to further expand the human mind. They offer the means to explore intelligence in ways that are similar to how the mind works--sometimes sequentially and sometimes randomly.

Everyone can learn. Everyone can learn more efficiently. Everyone can learn to be more intelligent. As these three concepts take root in educational practice, it will be possible to create educational systems that are truly appropriate for our times. These concepts underlie many of the following trends.

Positive Trends in Learning:

Meeting the Needs of a Rapidly Changing World

by Dee Dickinson

The Growing Diversity of Students Is Affecting Educational Planning and Practice in All Settings

Perceptual differences, as described by Charles Letteri and others, account for the fact that many students cannot learn effectively by just hearing or reading information. For many, especially since the widespread viewing of television, learning can be facilitated with charts, diagrams, mind-maps, computers, video, or other kinds of visual aids. Other students must literally hold ideas in their hands. For them, manipulatives such as Cuisinaire rods or other tangible projects make it possible and easier to learn abstractions such as those found in mathematics.

The 1988 report of the National Association of State Boards of Education, Right From the Start polnts out that "Thinking in young children is directly tied to their interactions with people and materials. Young children learn best by actively exploring their environment, using hands-on materials and building upon their natural curiosity and desire to make sense of the world around them." To this echo of Maria Montessori's earlier discoveries, we might add that this is also true for many older students.

Learning style researchers, such as Bernice McCarthy, David Kolb, Rita and Kenneth Dunn, and Anthony Gregorc, point out that individual differences such as the preference for learning alone or in groups, concretely or abstractly, completing teacher-generated projects or creating original ones can be accommodated in any classroom where there is a variety of learning activities. Also, improved student performance and self-esteem are often the result of learning in such environments as is demonstrated by the Clara Barton Open School in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Learning Styles Network sponsored bv the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development provides current information and new research and developments in the field.

The SOS (Strengthening of Skills) program, developed by Lynn O'Brien in Maryland, addresses the different learning styles of students and helps them become academically independent as they learn some of the essential tools for studying and learning. Throughout the program, students are encouraged to develop their creativity and apply their individual styles to mastering various learning strategies.

Pat Guild has researched at-risk students in the Seattle Public Schools, has worked with the Field-Dependent/Field-Independent assessments developed by Herman Witkin. Field-Dependent learners learn best in collaborative groups and need to see the "big picture" before they can attend to the details. Field-Independent learners work well on their own and are able to learn analytically, building up to the "big picture" by collecting the parts.

The results of Guild's work indicate that many low-achieving students tend to be Field-Dependent. Obviously then, the traditional practice of offering isolated bits and pieces of information to be mastered one at a time may not be the best approach for helping these children to learn.

The Jung-based Myers-Briggs assessments indicate that students with the highest grades in school tend to have "Introverted-lntuitive-Thinking-Judging" personalities. Low-achieving students tend to have "Extroverted-Sensing-Feeling-Perceiving" personalities. Since these assessments, like the Witkin scales, are independent of intelligence, it is clear that traditional schools favor specific characteristics; and therefore, do not offer all children an equal opportunity to learn.

Robert Sternberg, the Yale psychologist, examines yet another kind of difference. His Triarchic Mind Theory suggests that there are at least three kinds of intelligence, only one of which can be measured by most traditional assessment devices. Componential Intelligence, composed mainly of verbal and logical-mathematical abilities, can be assessed by l.Q. and standardized tests. On the other hand, Creative Intelligence and Practical Intelligence cannot be measured with these limited tools. However, they are of enormous value in a world filled with complex problems that cannot be solved purely through recall of facts.

Sternberg's new assessment device, published in 1992, offers the means to recognize and value a broader range of intelligence, thereby pointing to new directions for educational planning and practice. These and other kinds of intelligence can be developed through many of the multisensory, experiential learning processes described in this report.

David Perkins, Harvard research associate and co-director of Project Zero, also recognizes three basic dimensions to intelligence: the neural dimension, the experiential dimension, and the reflective dimension. He points out that reflective intelligence is the most learnable of the three and can be developed fairly rapidly in schools that offer opportunities to practice mental management, learning strategies, and metacognition or the ability to think consciously about and organize one's thinking. This "mindware" makes it possible to extend general powers to think effectively, critically, and creatively.

Howard Gardner, Harvard psychologist and co-director of Project Zero, offers a different perspective in his Theory of Multiple Intelligences. He, too, points out that our society and the schools that reflect it teach, test, reinforce, and reward primarily verbal and logical-mathematical abilities. Of course, these are essential skills for functioning in our culture. However, there are at least five other kinds of intelligence to be developed that may be doorways through which many children can enter the learning process. Visual-spatial, kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal intelligence can all be developed in classrooms that offer a variety of ways to learn. It is possible to accommodate all of these types of intelligence in the classroom.

At Cascade Elementary School in Marysville, Washington, members of a third grade class learn in seven different ways, moving through various learning centers focused on the different intelligences. Teacher Bruce Campbell notes steady improvement in student achievement and high motivation to learn.

The Key School, in Indianapolis, Indiana, bases the entire curriculum on the Theory of Multiple Intelligences and uses a broad variety of assessments in addition to multiple-choice standardized tests to measure student progress. Clearly these new assessments not only measure achievement more comprehensively, but are of greater value to both teacher and student.

The increasing number of students from different cultures or with special needs can be well served by programs that build on existing student strengths and offer many ways to learn. Active, multisensory learning is one of the keys to providing equity in learning opportunities.

Innovative Parent Education Programs Are Being Held in Homes, Schools, Hospitals, and Community Centers

An innovative program, begun in Venezuela in 1979, is an example of what a whole country dedicated to the development of its children can do. Luiz Alberto Machado, former Minister for the Development of Intelligence, created a program to raise the level of intelligence of the entire population of his country from birth to old age. Using existing institutions, including hospitals, schools, the media, civil service, the military, and industries, he literally bombarded the country with new information on how to develop human capacities more fully.

The program, called the Family Project, began in maternity hospitals, where new mothers were educated by trained volunteers and video programs that provided the foundation for the fuller development of their children through loving care, proper nutrition, sensory-motor stimulation, and physical exercises. Follow-up through community centers continued the education of parents for their children's first three years. Five-minute television spots were broadcast twenty times every day on all four commercial television channels. Beatriz Manrique, who founded the Family Project, continues to develop the program and document its positive effects in Venezuela. In January, 1990, the first U.S. Family Project, based on Manrique's model, was begun in Arlington, Virginia.

The "Day One" video parent education program developed by New Horizons for Learning in Seattle was inspired by the Venezuelan program, although it is based on research in the United States. It is being used in parenting programs and maternity units of hospitals throughout the country, and has been translated for use in France, Israel, Mexico, and South America.

[In 1991] Missouri [was] the only state in the United States with legislation to provide free parent-education and family support services in every school district. The Parents as Teachers (PAT) program was established in 1981 to reach families before children are born and to provide on-going resources to parents of young children on a voluntary basis. Implementation of PAT is underway in 27 other states, and training programs are conducted throughout the country.

The program offers parent education for the first 8 months, periodic screening of children through age 4, and parent education programs for developmentally delayed 3 and 4 year old children. Parent educators complete a special PAT training program developed by Burton White.

The results of a three-year pilot study show that children whose parents participated in the program consistently scored higher on all measures of intelligence, achievement, verbal ability, and social development than children in comparison groups.

In Seattle, Washington, the Program for Early Parent Support (PEPS) offers resources for parents and their babies. Parents meet for two hours once a week for the first six months to share feelings and deal with unmet expectations, promote the attachments of parent and child, and provide timely information on child rearing issues and personal growth. Over 1000 families have participated in these groups. PEPS also distributes posters with community resource information, makes hospital visits, and publishes a newsletter of interest to new parents.

Also in Seattle, Citizens Education Center developed a Parent Leadership Training Project to reduce the number of Hispanic children who drop out of school in Sunnyside, Washington. In 1989, the program received national attention for its work in helping parents become successful advocates for their children's education in three additional communities: Seattle, Toppenish, and Wapato. More communities continued to be added after the success of the pilot. The Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, the Education Commission of the States, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services honored the program for its exemplary work.

Head Start programs are designed to offer opportunities for parents to learn how to lay the foundations for their children's healthy development, to improve health services and nutrition for children, to offer joyful preschool learning, to identify and remediate disabilities early, and to promote economic self-sufficiency. Even though for over twenty-five years Head Start programs have succeeded in making a lasting difference in ability for at-risk children, only 20% of the eligible children are being served. The Head Start Innovative Projects, now in 22 states, offer expanded services to younger children and their families.

The Head Start /IBM Partnership Project offers the latest in computer technology to help Head Start families reduce dependency and increase self-sufficiency. The program, based on Head Start multicultural guidelines and the NAEYC guidelines for developmentally appropriate practice, is designed to enhance language development and learning skills of three- and four-year old children through a combination of computer technology and warm, human interaction. An essential element of the program is the training of staff, parents, and volunteers as role models for the children.

The Parent and Child Education Program in Kentucky and The Kenan Trust Family Literacy Project, which was modeled after the Kentucky program, are examples of other intergenerational programs. Now installed at seven sites in Kentucky and North Carolina, the Kenan Project holds classes three days a week in elementary schools for undereducated parents and their three- and four-year-old children. Parents are taught that they are the first and foremost educators of their children. They are given the skills to become literate themselves, as well as, the skills to help their children to learn. The Kenan Trust also serves as a clearinghouse for information on family literacy programs.

Harold McGraw, President of the Business Council for Effective Literacy, points out that "the best that we know confirms that an interdisciplinary approach is essential." Parent educators, adult literacy teachers, early childhood teachers, and family support agencies must work together in order to create the most effective programs.

More Early Childhood Programs Are Being Planned To Be Developmentally Appropriate for Children

The current trend toward "developmental appropriateness" of early childhood education programs is increasing in strength. This trend includes considerations of both age appropriateness related to physical, emotional, social, and cognitive abilities, and individual appropriateness related to personality, culture, learning style, family background, and special needs.

The research of the National Association for the Education of Young Children suggests that children learn most effectively through a concrete, experiential approach. Exemplary programs are tailored to meet the needs of children, rather than require that children adjust to the demands of specific programs. It is more widely recognized that multiple-age groupings and ungraded primaries offer greater flexibility in accommodating these approaches.

According to developmental psychologists, play is the primary vehicle for and indicator of mental growth in young children. Every area of their development is exercised in this "work" of childhood. The NAEYC recommends that "child-initiated and child-directed, parent or teacher-supported play is an essential component of developmentally appropriate practice." The Association has serious concerns about the potentially damaging effects of pushing inappropriate academic schoolwork into the preschool and primary years, and even more concern about testing below the third grade because of the wide variation in the physical, mental, and emotional development of young children.

Focus on "the whole child" is at the heart of the trend toward developmentally appropriate learning. In primary schools, integrated curricula, multi-age groupings, multi-sensory activities, opportunity for much physical activity, group learning, and direct experience with interesting learning materials are keys to engaging the child in this new kind of "work." In meeting the needs of children from many different cultures, a variety of teaching methods and materials, such as these, is essential. For children with special needs, more avenues to learning are opened.

Educational Systems are Changing from Outmoded Industrial Models to Ones That Are More Appropriate For Our Time

A screening system was instituted to identify the 20 percent of the population considered capable of being leaders, another 30 percent who were capable of being professionals, 30 percent who could be part of the workforce even though functionally illiterate, and 20 percent considered to be uneducable. The bell curve was taken from Darwin's work and used to describe the distribution of intelligence. Unfortunately, such screening practices too often remain in the thinking of some administrators and some teachers today, at least as a set of unconscious assumptions if not as institutionalized policy.

Most students with severe disabilities or who spoke no English were not in school in the early 1900's. A large number dropped out: in 1910 about 90 percent of the students left school, in the 1950's about 50 percent, in the 1960's about 40 percent, and since 1970 an average of 25 percent, except in large urban areas where the figure is often over 50 percent of all enrolled students.

Although society has changed dramatically, the majority of traditional public schools has not. Many schools continue to predict and produce failure; however, many educators, parents, business people, and politicians are calling for change.

The social, technological, ecological, economic, and information challenges of our time require a whole new approach to education. At the same time, there is more information on human development and learning than ever before. Stakeholders have both the motivation for change and the strategies to create schools in which success is possible for students and teachers.

The trend for restructuring schools incorporates many different components that are combined in different ways and are appropriate to the needs of individual schools and communities. As the curriculum continues to grow in response to the needs of society, more effective ways are being implemented to help all students to learn. No single one of the following components offers the answer to school problems, but all offer hopeful new possibilities and new insights into teaching and learning.

Thinking Skills

The kind of complex problems with which every individual and organization must deal today necessitates the development of higher order thinking processes and intelligent behavior. Ethical, altruistic, and long-range thinking are of crucial importance to society. Analyzing, synthesizing, creating, evaluating, planning, and decision-making are now required in every setting; including home, community and workplace. Even jobs that could formerly be done by unskilled workers now require the use of sophisticated thinking skills. For example, today, many workers in industrial plants need to read and interpret complicated manuals and make important decisions on-line.

As it is recognized increasingly that intelligence is modifiable, many schools have begun to teach thinking skills and intelligence both as separate subjects and integrated throughout the curriculum. It is essential to recognize that these programs take time and training to develop and implement, and that they must be on-going in order to bear fruit. Arthur Costa's book, Developing Minds, contains a comprehensive overview of many of these programs. Recognizing the importance of developing applied thinking skills, the U.S. Patent Office has launched Project XL as an outreach program to encourage the development of thinking and problem-solving among students. The goals of the program are to create awareness among educators and the general public, to motivate educators to involve students in applying the skills of inquiry and creative and critical thinking to real-life problem-solving experiences, to offer resources, and to create a network for gathering and disseminating information.

John Barrell, Professor of Education at Montclair State College and until recently Director of the ASCD Thinking Skills Network, points out that all programs focused on the development of thinking skills must recognize the importance of emotions to cognitive development. Self-concept and openness to other people's ideas, attitudes, and feelings about learning are crucial.

Arthur Costa suggests that well-trained teachers must model their own continuing development of higher-order thinking skills such as intellectual curiosity, flexibility, goal-setting, and problem solving for their students. The creation of positive, open, accepting environments that foster collaboration are essential to the development and practice of these types of thinking.

Many thinking skills programs have been developed and are widely implemented in schools throughout the country. Among the most frequently used are Talents Unlimited developed by Calvin Taylor, Kids Kits, Philosophy for Children developed by Matthew Lippman, HOTS developed by Stanley Pogrow, CORT developed by Edward deBono, and Instrumental Enrichment, developed by Reuven Feuerstein.

Taylor's Talents Unlimited is used in 1300 schools with over 210,000 students. At Westover Elementary, an inner-city school in Stamford, Connecticut, Talents Unlimited is being applied throughout the curriculum with extremely positive results. This magnet school also incorporates all of the arts in its program and utilizes the Gregorc learning styles approach to meet the needs of diverse students.

Pogrow's HOTS program (Higher Order Thinking Skills) is designed to improve the basic skills of disadvantaged students by utilizing a combination of computer technology and Socratic dialogue. Now a part of the curriculum in 300 schools in 22 states, the program is used daily. At Jamestown Elementary School, in Pennsylvania, in addition to developing improved decision-making, problem-solving, and motivation students improved their reading skills 5.6 years in one year. Among Chapter I students in Grades 5 and 6, more than 20 percent scored beyond high school on a reading post test.

Feuerstein's Mediated Learning and Instrumental Enrichment programs are now used with great success with students of all ability levels and with different cultural groups throughout the world. Schools and universities are discovering that the skills of intelligence can be taught. Portland, Oregon, and Detroit, Michigan have implemented the program throughout their school systems with great success. Also in Detroit, a program in Mediated Learning has been developed for parents. In Vancouver, B.C., over 200 teachers were trained in Feuerstein's methods and over 1,000 students are learning successfully through them.

At Wasatch Elementary in Salt Lake City, Utah, all faculty members were involved in researching and selecting thinking skills programs to implement, and all have participated in an on-going training program. They developed an eclectic model consisting of deBono's Six Thinking Hats, Philosophy for Children, Talents Unlimited, and process writing. There is much emphasis on allowing time to think, share, and collaborate. The results observed by students, teachers, and parents have been dramatic. The school is part of the 25 school ASCD Thinking Skills Consortium.

Cooperative Learning

The impressive research done on this educational strategy indicates that when students learn together in pairs or in small groups, learning is faster, there is greater retention, and students feel more positive about the learning process. Cooperative learning enhances children's ability to construct knowledge as they engage in discovering new ideas with each other. In addition, it enhances students' self-esteem and helps teachers with classroom management. Its value has resulted in widespread use throughout the country, and it has become a standard part of most pre-service training. It may become a unifying element in school reform.

Since Cooperative Learning will succeed only when both teachers and students have learned the important skills involved in the process, the most successful Cooperative Learning schools are those that provide on-going training for their staff with many opportunities to collaborate and share ideas with each other.

Effective methods of teaching cooperative learning have been developed by such researchers as Roger and David Johnson at the University of Minnesota Cooperative Learning Center; Spencer Kagan, Director of Resources for Teachers; and Yael and Shlomo Sharan, at Tel-Aviv University in Israel.

At the Cornelia Elementary School in Minneapolis, over a two year period, all of the staff has been trained in Cooperative Learning and two lead teachers conduct an on-going staff-development program. Collegial groups meet twice a month to share ideas, assist each other, observe, and co-teach. A new component of the program is the development of negotiation and mediation skills for students. Ongoing research will continue as students learn the process and take turns in being classroom mediators.

Examples of other successful Cooperative Learning programs are those implemented at the Keystone Project of the Fort Worth Independent School District in Texas, Greenwich Public Schools in Connecticut, Park Lane Elementary in Lawton Oklahoma, and the Cherokee Project in lowa.

Complex Instruction is similar to Cooperative Learning since it is based on small-group instruction; however, it also includes elements of multiple intelligences, thinking skills, and interdisciplinary programs. It is frequently used with "Finding Out/Descubrimiento," a bilingual math and science program. Developed by Elizabeth Cohen and Edward de Avila at Stanford University, the program has been researched for ten years and successfully implemented in hundreds of classrooms with high proportions of minority and at-risk students.

The program offers alternatives to tracking for groups with different ability levels, and offers ways to work with multilingual classrooms where grouping may remove meaningful opportunities for language acquisition. Based on research from sociology, the program focuses on eliminating status problems which inhibit successful learning and personal development. Also, the program is meeting a great need for effective teaching strategies in heterogeneous middle-schools.

Arts in Education

The arts have been powerful forms of teaching and learning since the beginning of humankind. Every civilization has used memorable visual symbols, stirring songs, and eloquent poetry to instill national pride.

The earliest church, still one of the most effective educational organizations, taught its lessons to illiterate parishioners through parables, sung and spoken words in rhythmic patterns, murals, statues, choreographed movements and processions--all emotionally reinforced by the music of organ and choirs and involving all of the senses and active physical participation.

For individuals, the arts pro