Greenwood Educators' Reference Collection – serie

Because schools must operate in a changing environment, educators must manage change whether they wish to or not. Administrators must plan accordingly, and the best plans spring from a solid theoretical base. This comprehensive handbook provides that base. Sybouts draws on systems theory to develop effective approaches to strategic and operational planning in education. The text evolved from case studies of successful planning in local school districts and from a national survey of education faculty. Sybouts emphasizes that the human dimension of educational planning is paramount, and that leadership and vision are essential to the effective management of change.The volume begins with a rationale for improved planning in educational administration. Sybouts then lucidly explains the fundamentals of systems theory and provides a theoretical frame for the rest of the book. He turns his attention to strategic and operational planning and explores the relationship between the two. He then discusses key planning techniques, including trend analysis, mathematical projections, and flow charts. The book closes with practical guidelines on how to manage change and implement planning in school systems. This handbook is a valuable reference for administrative planners and education professionals and is a ready source of both theoretical and practical information.

Colleges are becoming increasingly concerned with the quality of undergraduate instruction, and faculty are devoting more attention to improving their teaching skills. This volume will help college faculty improve their performance in the classroom. The book contains useful theoretical information on the learning styles of college students, and it presents practical information on how to teach courses in particular disciplines. The chapter authors are widely recognized as master teachers.The information at the beginning of the book summarizes and evaluates current research in cognitive psychology and student learning styles. The bulk of the volume then provides practical information on college teaching. A set of chapters stresses the advantages of different instructional methods, while other chapters are devoted to teaching particular disciplines in the arts and sciences. The book also presents information on related issues, such as working with at-risk students, classroom management, textbook selection, and grading. This professional reference will be an indispensable tool for college professors in all disciplines.

This professional reference provides a comprehensive historical, theoretical, and practical overview of career centers in colleges and universities. The authors present and discuss various models of providing career services as well as ways to work with various constituent groups of clients. The volume emphasizes the pragmatics of planning, managing, and implementing career centers and provides examples of forms, policies, and strategies that have been proven to work. While the focus of the book is on practicality, the book emphasizes how theory should guide practice. The reference gives direct and proven examples of how to implement a comprehensive array of career services in a college or university.The authors address three points that are fundamental in providing career services. First, they trace the evolution of the delivery of college career services and they review various career center models. Second, they provide information and strategies that are necessary for the planning, organization, staffing, funding, and management of a college career center. Third, they review a range of services that may be provided by career centers, including counseling, assessment, computer-based guidance systems, programming, career information, and placement. Each chapter includes a list of references, and a selected bibliography concludes the work. The result is a reference bound to be of value to a wide range of student services personnel.

This professional reference provides a broad picture of cooperative learning methods. The volume includes descriptions of the main generic methods of instruction, applications of cooperative learning to various subject-matter disciplines, and discussions of the implementation of cooperative learning in schools. The book is divided into three sections. The first, on methods, includes chapters on the fundamental strategies of cooperative learning. The second, on applications, provides practical information on the use of cooperative learning in mathematics, science, and language arts instruction. The third, on implementation, contains chapters on the creation and administration of cooperative learning programs in schools. Each chapter in this reference is written by an expert contributor and mentions current sources of additional information. Thus, the book is a comprehensive collection of practical information for all those interested in cooperative learning.

The increase in diverse student populations and the growing complexity of higher education have made academic advising a critical component of student success. This comprehensive professional reference overviews academic advising as a function and a process. Practitioners will find much valuable information on the intricacies of student advising, and administrators will find a thorough treatment of the functions necessary for the effective delivery of this important service. The handbook gives special attention to the needs of particular student populations and offers considerable coverage of academic advising as a profession.The book begins with a thoughtful glance at the history and development of advising. It then turns to some of the significant administrative matters related to the successful delivery of this service. The following chapter considers the essential skills and materials needed by academic advisers of all types. Because of the importance of college as preparation for a vocation, a chapter explores the link between career counseling and other forms of advising. A lengthy discussion of the needs of disabled students, adult students, and other special populations follows, along with a look at the needs of specific racial and ethnic groups. The closing chapters treat important professional issues, including evaluation and professional development. Counselors, administrators, and all those involved in the academic advisory process will find this book a much needed reference tool.

The school principalship is one of the most demanding and misunderstood jobs in American education. As the person in charge of the daily operation of a particular school, the principal is vested with enormous responsibility for the education of students, the supervision of personnel, and the adherence to numerous laws and policies. This professional reference provides practical information for K-12 principals about how to conduct their jobs in the most effective manner.The practical information in the book is informed by a solid discussion of the history of the principalship and the characteristics of effective schools. The bulk of the volume provides valuable information on the legal and business concerns of the principal, the effective management of personnel, the importance of systems theory to effective planning, and the relationship between the school and the community. Throughout the volume, the authors stress that the principal is a leader and a visionary who empowers, rather than merely a manager who oversees tasks.

Educational advisers around the world respond daily to numerous questions about study or research in the United States. In order to adequately address the growing volume of these crucial inquiries, advisers must begin to develop themselves as information professionals. To this end Where in the World to Learn gives international education advisers a solid grounding in library and information management. It is the first guide ever written to formulate advising in terms of the principles and practices of library and information science. From it advisers will learn how to acquire appropriate materials, organize them in a useful manner, and effectively meet the needs of their clients.The author emphasizes the importance of advising for international education within the context of the accelerated internationalization of the globe. He further stresses the importance of developing advising as an information profession within the advance of the information age. His book demonstrates the character of advising as an information service involving the systematic gathering, organizing, communicating, and managing of information. The conviction of this work is that advisers can achieve maximum professionalization through commitment to developing themselves and advising as a systematic information service.

Emphasizing that diversity in the curriculum is as much about a way of thinking as it is about specific information, Lutzker presents a compendium of innovative and practical classroom strategies and widely available information resources which will enable faculty to increase the multicultural content of their courses without necessarily making major changes in their accustomed methods of teaching. This is a handbook for college faculty in all disciplines who would like to increase the multicultural content of their courses, but have been reluctant to do so for a variety of reasons including an already overloaded syllabus, a lack of background in the subject, uncertainty about student reactions, or lack of time to make substantial changes in an existing syllabus. Administrators anxious to increase diversity in the curriculum of their institutions, but unable to fund large-scale curriculum revision projects, will also find this volume useful.Part I is concerned with classroom strategies and with student research projects. Starting with discussions of objectives and priorities, the underlying role of critical thinking, and the importance of language sensitivity, the book then describes specific classroom strategies useful for increasing diversity. The subsequent chapters are devoted to discussions of general guidelines for developing student projects with a multicultural perspective, innovative alternatives to the traditional term paper, and suggestions for multicultural student projects which do not require library research. Part I concludes with a discussion of possible student reactions to increased multiculturalism, and suggested approaches to those reactions.Part II is concerned with information resources which will be useful to instructors and to students. Fully annotated lists are provided in a variety of areas including widely available primary sources, specialized biographical directories, sources for sample syllabi in all disciplines, guides to ethnic and foreign press, to films and videos, and to electronic resources. Part II concludes with a discussion designed to increase efficiency in using the library catalog to locate information in multicultural subject areas. Appendices provide sample research worksheets, a list of small publishers and distributors of multicultural books, and an annotated bibliography.

Through expert essays, this handbook covers all aspects of the admissions process, from a historical overview to a guide to future trends. Both new and experienced admissions officers and educational administrators will find here essential tools for successfully recruiting and enrolling a desirable mix of students for their institutions. This handbook has been prepared by the foremost leaders in the college admissions profession under the auspices of the American Association of Registrars and Admissions Officers. Topics include: the dilemma of quantity versus quality in admissions recruiting; understanding enrollment management; marketing strategies; the role of technology; and student body diversity (including international students).

Covering a wide range of issues pertaining to student records management, this book will be of interest to both novices and seasoned professionals who work in a variety of offices at colleges and universities: Admissions, Records and Registration, Enrollment Services, Financial Aid, Veteran Affairs, International Students programs, Athletics, and Information Systems. Chapters written by experts for the forward-thinking higher education administrator cover: ethical practice; confidentiality of student information (including in an electronic record-keeping environment); compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act; certification of eligibility for veterans' benefits; unleashing human potential in the workplace; training in an automated systems environment; certification of academic eligibility for athletics participation; disaster preparedness and recovery; interpreting foreign academic credentials; and the impact and use of technology in the management of records and provision of services to students.

Women's centers in universities and colleges in the United States are flourishing as they transform individuals and institutions, providing education that combines the academic and activist, and develop leadership that is rooted in collaboration. This handbook provides insights from women's center directors at institutions across the country on how best to build a women's center that can improve the quality of women's experiences in college. The best centers aid universities and colleges in responding to particularly difficult challenges in higher education related to gender. Practical information is included on specific programs, providing an overview of successful centers. The institutional environments examined are diverse, ranging from research universities to community colleges, from large state-supported land grant institutions to small private liberal arts colleges.Chapters focusing on the structural issues of creating and transforming a center explore how to create crucial components of women's centers, such as leadership development programs, distinguished artists and scholars series, information and referral services for non-traditional students, women-centered counseling services, resource libraries, publications, and internship programs that involve both academic and experiential learning. Other chapters focus on social issues and the intransigent and wide-ranging challenges facing centers, including for example, sexual harassment, racial divisions among students, the climate for women in the sciences, and the need to build a stronger sense of intellectual community outside the classroom. The directors of women's centers around the country respond to these and other problems, and provide an overview of some of the best practices related to responding to a number of very difficult challenges in higher education.

Substance abuse is one of higher education's worst problems not only in terms of financial but also human cost. Drawing upon current theory and research, this handbook arrives at practical solutions to these problems. While there are divergent models of research and practice in substance abuse which have led to competing models of intervention, treatment, and prevention, this book seeks to reconcile those differences. It allows the reader to understand substance abuse from theoretical/research perspectives and guides the reader from conceptualization to programming to intervention with the substance abusing student. The book is divided into three parts. The first deals with ways of conceptualizing substance-abuse and the models which have been the basis for developing intervention strategies. Theories of how substance abuse problems develop are discussed and some suggestions are given as to how these theories may guide prevention, intervention, and treatment. The second part focuses on how one should establish policies and programming on campus, and how these programming and policy decisions can help in prevention strategies. The final part outlines how one can assess, intervene, and provide treatment for a substance abuser. Included here is a chapter on self-help groups and how they may be used in support of treatment and aftercare.

By managing death issues in a planned purposeful manner, schools can reduce suicide and other harmful behavioral reactions substantially. Helping students to understand death and loss is part of assisting them to become resilient, proactive individuals. Age-appropriate curriculum materials are provided for educating children and teenagers on issues of health, emotional depression, grief, and death. Ways of counseling in schools following the death of a student, teacher, or staff member are explored in detail. Signs of depression and at-risk behavior among teenagers are described as part of a comprehensive approach to prevention, intervention, and postvention concerning death, violence, and self-destructive behavior. The authors share strategies that have proved effective in helping students to focus away from self-destructive, violent single-path solutions to developing positive social skills and alternative plans. Developing a comprehensive school plan in anticipation of a death occurrence and training staff in its implementation greatly reduces emotional stress.

Does fear or trust dominate relationships in your school's classrooms? How well do supervisors listen to and respond to teachers? How well do teachers listen to and respond to students? How are problems identified and solved? Supportive Supervision in Schools is a guide for teachers and administrators who want to create good school climates and a school culture that encourages professional growth and development among staff members. It uses a conferencing method to allow teachers, administrators, and students to discuss and reflect upon what they are doing inside the school building.Old ideas about leadership models have not been supported by empirical research and have not influenced the way school leaders and teachers do their work. This book points to specific skill areas that need attention. It specifies that the creation of supportive environments occurs in weekly individual and group conferences. The authors stress the importance of listening and speaking so that messages are not distorted or misunderstood and emphasize trust-building. Using actual examples, this work shows how to construct supportive environments and how to identify and resolve problems.

Faculty of color are entering the academy at a time when colleges and universities are undergoing significant transformations. Demographic shifts promise the most diverse student body in the history of higher education. The technology explosion is transforming the way we experience teaching and learning. Public expectations that higher education institutions put students at the center of learning have never been higher. Administrators and faculty throughout the country proclaim that they want to diversify their faculty in order to be able to meet these new challenges. When they are successful, they hire faculty of color who bring an abundance of talent. Armed with the new knowledge they acquired in their life experiences and in pursuit of their advanced degrees, these faculty members not only promote diversity, but also offer different ways of knowing their field and different lenses through which to examine their disciplines.Yet, when faculty of color enter the academy, they all too often receive little guidance about what it takes to carve out a career in higher education. The present volume is a collection of success stories contributed by faculty of color that share their lessons of survival. It offers thoughtful analyses, multiple blueprints, and specific strategies for shaping a successful and satisfying academic career.

This handbook is intended for faculty and administrators who wish to create a welcoming and safe environment for all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students on our campuses. It will help readers, even those who may struggle personally with understanding non-heterosexual identities, gain a clearer understanding of the important issues facing these students. While some students arrive on campus with full clarity about their sexual identities, others may just be discovering their orientations while in our institutions. It is difficult to provide the attention LGBT students need if we do not understand the crises affecting them or how to address them. Each chapter analyzes specific issues affecting these students and offers recommendations or suggestions for change. Some of the areas discussed include: identity development theories, residence halls, career planning, health and counseling centers, HIV/AIDS, and student leadership and organizational development. Non-heterosexual faculty and staff may also find this work useful as they attempt to discover themselves in academic and educational literature.Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students are on our campuses. They are either discovering their orientations while in our institutions or arriving with full clarity about their sexual identities. It is difficult to provide the attention these students need if we do not understand the issues or how to address them. This handbook is a guide to providing services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students. It is for all faculty and administrators, especially those who may struggle personally with understanding non-heterosexual identities, who wish to create a safe and welcoming environment for all students. Non-heterosexual faculty and staff may also find this work useful as they attempt to discover themselves in academic and educational literature.Each section presents an area in which questions usually arise. Chapters within the sections dissect specific issues and, where appropriate, offer recommendations for change. Some of those areas include: identity development theories; residence halls; career planning; health and counseling centers; HIV/AIDS; students with disabilities; same-sex dating and domestic violence; athletics; fraternities; student leadership; speakers' bureaus and safe zone programs; commuter schools and church-related institutions; and Internet resources.

Goonen and Blechman provide an analysis useful as a desk reference or as a text for practicing and prospective administrators and university counsel. They examine the legal points, ethical questions, and practical steps an administrator or university counsel should be aware of in dealing with some of the most frequently encountered issues in the administration of a college, university, or other postsecondary institution.Each chapter targets a selected area of academic affairs, and the format includes four sections—legal parameters, ethical considerations, practical suggestions, and an illustrative case. Hiring issues, compensation and employment issues, promotion and tenure, terminations, non-renewals, and reductions in force, academic freedom, student disputes on academic matters, and transcript and degree issues are all analyzed. Goonen and Blechman provide a general guide that can be readily utilized and understood by those without specific prior training in the law or in higher education administration. The discussions and information the guide contains will be valuable to current and prospective practitioners as they seek to balance the legal, ethical, and practical issues that surface in every decision in the increasingly complex higher education arena.

Students in Discord fills a void in the professional literature concerning adolescents with emotional and behavioral disorders by providing theoretical information about psychiatric and psychological diagnoses with practical information about actual public school students who show both externalizing and internalizing disorders. In the process, the book provides understanding about disorders in childhood and adolescence and enhances understanding of federal guidelines on emotional disturbance, specifically those provided in the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act. The author provides suggested educational strategies that represent behavioral, psychological, sociological, and environmental models and that aim to both decrease undesirable behaviors and increase desirable ones.Theoretical issues covering disorders related to personality, disruptive behavior, eating, mood, anxiety, and development are illustrated by 57 adolescents whose feelings and behaviors are presented through anecdotal material, direct quotes from them and their teachers, life facts, and student writings. Additional perspectives are provided by comparing federal and practical definitional characteristics of emotional disturbance and discussing concerns about the inability of students with emotional and behavioral disorders to detach, the inclusion of socially-maladjusted students in the ED (emotionally disturbed) category, and the interrelation of emotional and behavioral disorders.

Jewish education is not a commodity to be acquired or taught in easily defined and understandable portions. Rather, it is an encounter with the Jewish tradition which, if done properly, can and should leave both students and teachers challenged, shaken, and deeply introspective. A powerful, effective experience in Jewish education should cause students to question, and perhaps ultimately, reaffirm those beliefs and practices that define who they are as individuals, Jews, and human beings. This book deals with issues related to challenging students in the classroom, gives age-appropriate methods of instruction, and discusses difficult religious issues unique to the Jewish classroom. It is for everyone associated with or even just interested in Jewish education.Rabbi Daniel Kohn, an experienced educator, uses stories and anecdotes based on his experiences as a founding faculty member of the Solomon Schechter High School of Long Island to illustrate his points. He describes ways to improve classroom management and explores the meaning of Jewish Studies and how to create a superior curriculum. He analyzes issues of immediate concern to Jewish educators today, such as the value of tracking students, teaching in Hebrew, whether Jewish studies courses should be taught in depth or cover more breadth of material, and whether text study skills or knowledge should be emphasized in such classes.

Many problems that plague modern American society, including disappearance of community, decaying inner cities, racial tensions, environmental degradation, declining civic engagement, and the increasing ineffectiveness of government, to name a few, are in many respects problems of leadership. Leadership means not only what elected and appointed public officials do, but also the critically important civic work performed by those individual citizens who are actively engaged in making a positive difference in society. Clearly, one of the major problems with contemporary civic life in America is that too few of our citizens are actively engaged in efforts to effect positive social change. Educators seldom acknowledge higher education's possible contribution to these problems or the role that it might play in alleviating them. Colleges and universities provide rich opportunities for developing leaders through the curriculum and co-curriculum. Co-curricular experiences not only support and augment the students' formal classroom and curricular experience, but can also create powerful learning opportunities for leadership development through collaborative group projects that serve the institution or the community. These projects can be implemented through service learning, residential living, community work, and student organizations.In the first section, Alexander W. Astin and Helen S. Astin, two of the most influential authors in education and co-principal investigators for the research team that devised Social Change Model of Leadership Development, share their insights on the model they helped create. Also in this section, other leading theoreticians offer provocative and challenging insights into non-hierarchical leadership. The second section features case studies and other examples from the practical realm. Contributions come from a wide array of programs and institutions, from community colleges to Ivy League institutions to urban public universities. Because campuses are increasingly diverse, leadership programs must not only acknowledge but embrace the multiplicity of identities personified in their students. Accordingly, the next section offers essays and case studies on complex issues of intersection of leadership and identity. The book concludes with two chapters essential for those seeking to access leadership development: one focusing on the need for assessment, the other containing an account of the first-ever instrument designed specifically to access non-hierarchical leadership, written by the creator of this instrument.

There has been an explosion of Web-based courses in higher education. Aiming at an interdisciplinary audience, the contributors draw upon diverse philosophical and empirical backgrounds to make claims about Web-based pedagogy. Among the points they raise is the concern that education is more easily commodified through Internet technologies, implying that traditional faculty roles in teaching (and research) are at risk. Moreover, current understandings of what it means to be a teacher or a student are undergoing redefinition as a result of these new distance-learning technologies.The contributors note that Web-based pedagogy is associated with sound instruction when particular strategies are adopted. As a corollary, this form of teaching is least effective when attempts are made to directly translate traditional styles of teaching. Political, social, and economic interests are competing to shape the direction that online education will take. The authors argue that opportunities exist for administrators and faculty to define the terms under which Web-based learning will occur in their institutions.

This comprehensive compendium of research focuses on key aspects of Catholic education in the United States. The volume includes reviews of research on topics ranging from church documents, spirituality, and the philosophy of Catholic education to parents, students, teachers, administration and governance, and curriculum and instruction. Benefit to many audiences--policy-makers, church leaders, educators, researchers, students, practitioners, patrons, and citizens--who are interested in these schools.The wealth of scholarly information provided here covers all areas of Catholic education, both school- and parish-based. The first volume of its kind ever published on Catholic learning and development, the handbook is an encyclopedia reference tool for the serious scholar as well as the committed Catholic educator.