Education & Pedagogy

This study examined the relations among research-identified non-academic indicators of post-school education and employment measured by the Transition Assessment and Goal Generator (TAGG), student grade point average (GPA), and percentage of time students with disabilities received instruction in the general education classroom. Participants included 1,219 individuals from 49 school districts, across nine states. Analysis of Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients indicated weak to no relations among variables with the exception of persistence and core GPA. Neither student GPA nor time in the general education setting accounted for meaningful variance in TAGG scores, suggesting the TAGG measures behaviors different from GPA and educational placement. Only scores provided by educators yielded a moderate correlation between core GPA and the construct of persistence. Implications for practice and future research needed are discussed.

This paper examines the role of William Graham Brooke as advocate of women's higher education and access to university. His work as advocate is considered against the religious, political, social and economic backdrop of late nineteenth century Ireland. A barrister, as Clerk in the Lord Chancellor's office, he was centrally involved in the organisation of Anglican schooling as part of a broader Irish-Church re-structuring in the wake of its Disestablishment (1869). For Brooke, education, including the education of women, constituted a single project; it was also a public project. He was ideally positioned to execute his role as advocate: descending from a family with a long tradition of involvement in Church education, Brooke had a thorough knowledge of the problems confronting women in education and in the workplace. The paper traces how Brooke, in a largely male-dominated society, exploited the relationships between the various bodies with which he had close connections to enable women to fruitfully engage with these same bodies in order to facilitate their access to university.

The practice of inclusion as a response to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act means that English teachers teach students who demonstrate a wide range of abilities in the same classroom. This qualitative study explored the developing attitudes toward differentiation of English education teacher candidates participating in a methods course cotaught by an English education professor and a special education professor. Findings revealed that their pedagogical beliefs were influenced by having knowledge of individual students, proactively engaging with professional concepts, and attending to students' affective needs in academic contexts. The teacher candidates in this study were able to discuss differentiation, but they struggled to implement it in practice; therefore, we argue that instruction on differentiation must be explicitly integrated into English methods courses. Using cognitive flexibility theory, we suggest ways teacher educators can help future teachers develop advanced knowledge of differentiation to meet the needs of their future students.

This study explores pre-service teachers' perceptions of movement education, the benefits they perceive from participating in a 12-week movement education module in a course on play, and the module's effects on their confidence and competence in regard to incorporating movement into a curriculum. Findings suggest that the pre-service teachers achieved a deeper understanding of movement education and appreciated the module as a worthwhile professional growth experience. Specifically, they viewed the module as enabling them to build a new understanding of movement, to express themselves physically, to develop movement skills, to engage in social interactions, and to teach a variety of subjects using movement education principles. The study demonstrated that the module of this nature constitutes a useful educational tool for fostering the professional development of pre-service teachers in regard to their beliefs, attitudes, and skills pertaining to movement education.

Over the last thirty years Community Oriented Policing (COP) has spawned advancements in creating community partnerships with law enforcement agencies. Agencies that focus on such partnerships have served to reduce crime and resolve conflict. However, community opinions towards law enforcement have become increasingly negative due to recent civil disturbances throughout the United States. Multiculturalism is rapidly expanding within our American communities. The lack of cross-cultural leadership has lent to increased societal conflict. Within law enforcement agencies, annual continued education in the effective interaction and communication with citizens from diverse backgrounds is increasingly necessary. Agencies who form partnerships with educational institutions create opportunities for annual education on cross-cultural leadership. Annual continued education for law enforcement in critical thinking creates opportunities for improved professional self-regulation, decision-making, problem solving and proper analysis of various plausible outcomes. Annual continued education geared towards interpersonal skills creates opportunities for increased communication, enhanced community rapport, and improved potential for de-escalation of hostile events.

The structure of higher education today, in conjunction with those actively trying to devalue a liberal arts degree in the public sphere, has set the table for what seems like a completely rational solution: finding a "niche." Broadly speaking, colleges offering a liberal arts education identify their "niche market" in terms of the conditions of teaching and learning, presenting themselves as the colleges of choice for students who want close personal interaction with faculty, smaller courses, and a grassy quadrangle. This article discusses three primary reasons that those who value liberal education should be concerned about the liberal arts experience being branded as a boutique product: (1) A boutique liberal arts diminishes the transformative potential of a liberal education; (2) The notion of a boutique liberal arts experience belies the real value of a liberal education; and (3) When the liberal arts experience is conceived as a luxury or boutique product, fewer institutions might embrace the kind of learning a liberal education makes possible.

Egypt promises "education for all". Primary attendance and completion have increased substantially. Still, many children remain out of school. There remain questions about the quality of education. Since the early 1990s, community-based education (CBE) has been part of Egypt's educational programme. Community-based education is meant to educate girls living in isolated communities who failed to enter school on time, or dropped out, but wish to rejoin formal schooling. Existing literature says CBE provides superior education and empowers girls. A criterion referenced assessment of these goals and claims collected data on students in three types of schools: CARE multi-grade schools, other community/one-classroom schools and regular government schools. Out-of-school girls were also interviewed. This study finds that CBE in Egypt is meeting neither the criteria laid out in project descriptions nor the accomplishments claimed in the community school literature. Still there remains a need for a well-designed CBE programme.

Ever since the proclamation of the Salamanca Statement (1994) and the "Dakar Framework for Action" (2000), several countries across the globe have been improving their education systems making remarkable efforts towards inclusion. Furthermore, the "Muscat Agreement" (2014) proposes a global goal and targets for education post-2015. The goal envisages equitable inclusive quality education and lifelong learning for all by 2030. This article inquires how Zanzibar, a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania along the East African coast, started to transform its education system in an attempt to make it inclusive. First, the commitment to and process towards Inclusive Education (IE) is described in the time frame of changes in education. Second, thematic analysis is conducted to examine the contextualisation and definition of the concept of IE, the introduction of relevant legislation, introduction of "Inclusive and Learner Friendly Education Policy", and the support provided for teachers to implement IE practices in the classrooms. Finally, the IE development in Zanzibar is compared to similar processes in sub-Saharan Africa.

This study aims to implement a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education approach in an environmental education course. The research involved the design and implementation of STEM activities by researchers, as part of the environmental education course taught in the second year of a Primary School Teaching undergraduate program. In this study--a case study using qualitative research methods--after the implementation of STEM activities, some mind maps and the views of the pre-service teachers regarding STEM education were examined. A total of 42 pre-service teachers participated in the study and an examination of their mind maps showed that they have a rich conceptual structure regarding STEM education and also associate STEM fields both with one another and with environmental education. In the interviews conducted following the activities, the pre-service teachers stated that they found STEM education to be efficient, easy to retain, and fun.

This article uses a multi-level framework to investigate for 17 European nations the links between forms of work organisation and style of employee learning at the workplace on the one hand, and the characteristics of national educational and training systems on the other. The analysis shows that forms of work organisation characterised by relatively high levels of employee discretion and learning are more likely to be adopted in nations with broad-based systems of education and training that recognise the value of both academic and vocational training and provide ample opportunities for continuing adult education. Furthermore, it shows that employees with low levels of formal education have better access to jobs involving organisational learning in countries with more developed adult education systems. The results point to the need to balance policies designed to increase tertiary education rates with a commitment of resources at both the EU and national levels to develop broad and inclusive systems of lifelong learning.

In the field of education, information and communication technologies and multimedia tools have become more prevalent then ever that almost all schools can obtain. Physical education which is not only very important component of formal and informal education but also an important part of lifelong learning has been affected by these developments and physical education teachers has begun to use educational technologies and multimedia. On the other hand, because of some reasons like lack of technical facilities and inadequate in-service training, educational technologies and multimedia tools are either not used in physical education classes or used ineffectively. In this study, how often and which educational technologies and multimedia tools are used by physical education teachers and--if there are--the reasons for ineffective use of these tools are investigated. Moreover, based on the findings of the study, some suggestions for physical education teachers to use educational technologies better are made.

In this article, "Education Next" talks with Matthew Ladner and Nelson Smith on the topic of Education Savings Accounts (ESAs). ESAs apply the logic of school choice to the ever-expanding realm of education offerings. Rather than simply empowering families to select the school of their choice, ESAs provide families with most or all of the funds that the state would have spent on their child's education. Funds can be spent on private school tuition, tutors, and online courses, for example, or be saved for future use. In this forum, Matthew Ladner, senior advisor for policy and research at the Foundation for Excellence in Education, argues that ESAs offer a grand advance over charter schooling and deserve the support of reformers. Nelson Smith, education policy consultant and senior advisor to the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, argues that the latest incarnation of ESAs in Nevada poses substantial risks and threatens to disrupt an increasingly successful charter school movement.

Against the backdrop of the rejection of mother tongue-based bilingual education in Southern Nigeria and in Northern linguistic minority areas, this study investigates the micropolitics of language education by interrogating everyday language practices of education stakeholders which are at variance with language-in-education policy. It relied on a wide range of data collected through carefully documented observations of classrooms and school community language practices, semi-structured interviews with publishing managers, informal interviews with teachers as well as a questionnaire survey (covering a comprehensive cross-section of stakeholders across the country). Findings suggest that only a uniformly implemented education policy in all schools across the country can restore the use of Nigeria's indigenous languages as media of instruction in primary schools. The study recommends a combination of advocacy and research findings to get the policy-makers and education stakeholders to accept first language-based (or L1 based) educational reform.

Time, and our experiences of it, warrants attention in "place"' pedagogies in outdoor education. Place typically involves the experience of a geographical location, a locale for interacting socially and/or with nature, and the subjective meanings we attach over time to the experience. Place, however, cannot be severed from the concept and practice of time, as seems to be occurring in the discourse of outdoor education. The way outdoor educators carefully conceive of, plan for, manage and pedagogically practice time may, in our view, positively facilitate an introductory "sense" of place. We illustrate the under-theorised relationship of time and place in outdoor and experiential education via a case study of a semester-long undergraduate unit, Experiencing the Australian Landscape. It reflexively describes how two post-traditional outdoor educators working in the higher education sector have assisted pre-service experiential and outdoor educators to sense, explore, conceptualise and examine how "slow" time is important in "placing" education in nature.

This paper investigated the stress levels of first-year education students who undertake teaching practicum and theory units during their first year of teacher education program. First, 139 first-year and 143 other years' education students completed the PSS-10 scale, which measures perceived level of stress. Then, 147 first-year education students completed an online questionnaire to identify the particular stressors in their learning experience. The first-year education students had significantly higher stress levels than other years' education students, (p < 0.01). Contributing stressors included academic work commitment; completing placement and related performance assessments in schools and at university; having a good understanding of the requirements of professional teaching, such as classroom management, and working with mentor teachers; and conflicting work and family commitments. These findings provide greater understanding about the stressors experienced by first-year education students and usefully inform ways to help this group achieve their study and career goals.