Education & Pedagogy

Over the last decade and a half, physical education curricula in New Zealand and Australia have had a strong socio-cultural-critical orientation, providing in depth opportunities for critical inquiry. This article suggests that trying to achieve a criticality maybe impeded and or constrained by present graduating teacher standards. In the discussion, it is highlighted that neither New Zealand nor Australia graduating teacher standards overtly suggest critical inquiry as a part of beginning teachers' required knowledge, skills or dispositions. This could be a significant constraint on maximising the intent of the New Zealand and Australia physical education curricula. As a result, this article makes suggestions as to how a pedagogical constructive framework, with an emphasis on critical constructivism, might provide a way forward.

Textbook prices are continuously rising in higher education. This paper analyzes a business model which makes commercial textbooks more expensive, and explains why this issue tends to be more severe in the field of distance learning in higher education. It reports a case of adoption of open educational resources (OER) textbook for an online course to tackle the problem of high textbook prices which are associated with the bundled online academic services. Based on an analysis of the business model practiced in this case study, the paper discusses the challenges for implementation of this business model in distance education. It provides suggestions for institutional administrations to engage the distance learning community to reduce the costs of higher education.

The cultivation of the holistic person has always been a topic of concern for general education in Taiwan's universities. Hopefully students can attain a more perfect human nature. So the question is how to practice general education to cultivate the holistic person. This is the focus of this article. After reading and analyzing related studies, the strategies for cultivating the holistic person we identified are as follows: (1) concern about students' knowledge integration and moral manifestation, (2) cultivation of students' human nature, (3) concern with students' life experiences, and (4) general education is as important as professional education. Hopefully the discussion in this article will provide some ideas to help Taiwan's current general education practices, and allow us to realize the ideal of general education, i.e., the cultivation of the holistic person.

As a form of digital content, e-Textbooks make learning content portable, transferable, and searchable. Such technology increases students' engagement in learning and make learning highly interactive. However, the adoption of using e-Textbooks in higher education is far from its confirmation stage. This study examines the relationship between perceived attributes of using e-Textbooks by instructors and their actual use of e-Textbooks in higher education. A survey study has been conducted to measure how instructors from public universities in colleges of education perceive using e-Textbooks in higher education. The findings suggest that instructors, institutions, and e-Textbooks publishers should work collaboratively to enhance the use of e-Textbooks in higher education.

This paper will investigate Dewey's "Democracy and Education" in relation to the curriculum. There are two overarching themes to the paper: the concept of the democratic curriculum and the academic/vocational divide. Dewey is seen as a pivotal thinker in relation to collaborative learning and the child as a vital voice in any learning that takes place in the classroom and beyond. The paper explores whether issues such as school governance and pupil voice facilitate Dewey's notion of democratic education. Alongside this is the issue of the academic/vocational divide within English education. Acknowledgement will be made of Dewey's theory of knowledge which emphasises the connection between concept and application and how this can influence the incorporation of the theoretical and the practical as part of children's learning in a given curriculum.

This article explores encounters between formal, informal, and non-formal education and the role of mentor-educators in creating values education in which such encounters take place. Mixed-methods research was conducted in Israeli public schools participating in the Personal Education Model, which combines educational modes. Ethnographic and quantitative analyses reveal the role of informal components in the program. Multidimensional Similarity Structure Analysis indicates informal components form contexts replicating Schwartz's (1992) Human Value Theory. This analysis is a theoretical contribution, revealing the values-based infrastructure underlying the Code of Informality (Kahane, 1997). Further, it is a practical contribution, developing understanding of strategies for values education.

Citizenship education is one of the main aims of the mandated subject of social studies in secondary schools in the Netherlands. Moreover, the learning outcomes of social studies refer to constitutional rights. Internationally, citizenship education and human rights education are considered to be mutually reinforcing. One may, thus, expect that Dutch school textbooks include elements of human rights education. This article presents the analysis of a popular social studies textbook in the Netherlands, applying a number of human rights education criteria. The study shows that basic information on human rights is lacking, despite ample opportunity to integrate such themes. Most worrisome is the conveyance of potential misinformation about human rights due to the chosen formulation of rights-related issues. This can, in part, be traced back to the textbook authors' (mis)understanding of human rights.

I argue that political philosopher Charles W. Mills' twin concepts of 'the epistemology of ignorance' and 'white ignorance' are useful tools for thinking through racial injustice in the British education system. While anti-racist work in British education has a long history, racism persists in British primary, secondary and tertiary education. For Mills, the production and reproduction of racism relies crucially on cognitive and epistemological processes that produce ignorance, and which promote various ways of ignoring the histories and legacies of European colonialism and imperialism, as well as the testimonies and scholarship of those who experience racism in their everyday lives. I survey these concepts within Mills' work then marshal evidence in support of my claim that 'the epistemology of ignorance' and 'white ignorance' provide a useful framework for thinking through problems of racial injustice in British education.

Outdoor education programs have been shown to have a positive effect on the educational, physical and emotional development of youth. They are increasingly being used to foster a sense of community in schools and to provide students with learning opportunities related to the environment. This article describes an integrated outdoor education program aimed at increasing physical activity and science knowledge among elementary school children in an economically disadvantaged urban community. Results from a study that was conducted showed that activity levels were significantly higher and sedentary time was significantly lower during the outdoor education program compared to the rest of the school day. Schools can utilize outdoor education programs to promote physical activity and improve science learning in elementary school children.

Doctoral education programs in physical education teacher education have a responsibility to train aspiring faculty members to be effective researchers and good teachers. Using occupational socialization theory as a framework, this article proposes a progressive approach to helping physical education teacher education doctoral students gain experience in the role of teacher educator. The authors acknowledge socialization factors that influence one's learning to become a teacher educator, discuss activities in which doctoral students can be engaged through a four-year Ph.D. program, and describe the potential role of larger university and professional structures. While doctoral training is context-specific and contextual differences result in this model being more feasible in certain contexts, it is believed that the general progression of activities would be beneficial for all aspiring faculty members.

This study aimed to compare the objectives of environmental education topics in various countries. The present study is a qualitative study and content analysis was used to analyze the data. The results revealed that the categories of the objectives regarding the environment topic in the primary education were found to be higher in Turkey compared to other countries. The concept of the ozone layer in chemistry curricula and the concept of biodiversity in biology curricula were intensively included. No country had objectives regarding all subcategories in primary education. There are no objectives regarding field trip in physics subject in all countries. Objectives regarding the category of identifying issues and research question were included only in Australia. However, the activities for environmental education were determined to be at a low level in all the countries.

This article begins with a review of relevant literature and a brief introduction to dependency theory and center-periphery theory, and then it will outline major changes in general education in the United States. In the third part, the article analyzes how U.S. general education has been transferred to Japan, China, and Hong Kong; its impact on the three places; and similarities and differences in the acceptance and implementation of U.S. general education in Japan, China, and Hong Kong. The study concludes by identifying characteristics of general education in these three systems and to what extent dependency theory or center-periphery theory can explain the transfer of U.S. ideas to Japan, China, and Hong Kong with regard to the changes in their respective higher education curricula.

This article is the twelfth in a series of articles entitled "The Legacy Project." The series focuses on the lives and actions of leaders who have forged technology engineering education profession into what it is today. Members of the profession owe a debt of gratitude to these leaders. One simple way to demonstrate that gratitude is to recognize them and some of their accomplishments. In this article, the author focuses on Mr. Jerry Balistreri, DTE, who responded to a series of questions relating to: significant legacies during his tenure as a state (North Dakota, Utah, and Alaska) and local supervisor of technology education, defining technological literacy, his shift from industrial arts to technology education, public relations efforts used to make the case for moving toward technology education, and merging technology education while still taking advantage of vocational education funding sources.

With many students learning English also identified with disabilities in public schools, collaborations across special education and English learner (EL) education are critical to promoting these students' academic and linguistic development. Yet, many special education and EL teachers work independently of one another, focusing on their own specialized roles. In the process, students with disabilities who are learning English receive fragmented, inadequate special education and EL services. This article provides specific strategies--cocreating individualized education programs and instituting consultations--special education and EL teachers can implement to break out of their isolated roles and to build synergistic relationships that benefit the learning of students with disabilities who are learning English.

Financial education is an important area of study due in part to the need for improved understanding of how to navigate an ever more complex financial decision-making environment, thus the need for effective classroom instruction. The purpose of this study is to examine a "teacher-as-learner" professional development program that is rooted in both professional development and adult education fields of study as means of providing financial education. This program educates teachers on their own personal finance, ultimately better preparing educators to teach financial literacy education. Results showed significant improvements in self-reported financial behaviors between pre- and posttests. Results suggest using contextual learning for teacher professional development because it benefits personal finances and successful teaching practices.