Education & Pedagogy

This book gathers some of Hannah Arendt's core themes and focuses them on the question, 'What is education for?' For Arendt, as for Aristotle, education is the means whereby we achieve personal autonomy through the exercise of independent judgement, attain adulthood through the recognition of others as equal but different, gain a sense of citizenship through the assumption of our civic rights and responsibilities, and realize our full potential as sentient beings with the capacity for human 'flourishing' and 'happiness' ("eudaimonia"). In order to appreciate the pivotal role that education plays in Arendt's analysis of the human condition, we have to understand the emphasis she placed on 'thoughtfulness', as the measure of our humanity and on 'thoughtlessness', as the measure of our inhumanity. Education sustains and develops the human capacity: to think together ("phronesis"), to think for oneself (what Arendt called 'the two-in-one' of thinking), and to think from the point of view of others (what she termed 'representative thinking'). From the developing constellation of ideas embedded in her vast and varied body of work, the author infers a notion of education as a necessary preparation for personal fulfillment, social engagement, and civic participation.

Digital technologies have transformed the way people interact, work and learn. The emergency transition to online teaching and learning necessitated by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has posed a serious challenge to instructional routines of higher education systems across OECD countries. The pandemic has demonstrated the ability of higher education institutions to ensure continuity in teaching and learning, but it has also revealed that much work remains to be done to ensure digital technologies are effectively used to promote quality, efficiency and equity in higher education. This report, which focuses on the digital transformation of higher education in Hungary, is a collaboration between the European Commission's Directorate-General for Structural Reform Support (DG REFORM), the Hungarian Ministry for Innovation and Technology and the OECD's Directorate for Education and Skills. Building on stakeholder engagement and comparative analysis, the report offers an assessment of the current state of digitalisation in higher education in Hungary, identifies policy recommendations to strengthen the current policy framework supporting digitalisation, and provides suggestions to help Hungarian authorities and stakeholders develop a monitoring framework and indicators to measure the digitalisation of the higher education system.

Computer science (CS) education helps students acquire skills such as computational thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration. Since these skills take preeminence in the rapidly changing 21st century, CS education promises to significantly enhance student preparedness for the future of work and active citizenship. CS education can also reduce skills inequality if education systems make a concerted effort to ensure that all students have equitable access to curricula that provide them with the needed breadth of skills--regardless of their gender, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. Based on prior analyses and expert consultations, the authors selected 11 CS-education country, state, and provincial case studies with lessons that can broadly apply to other education systems. This particular study examines how Chile is training a future workforce of creative problem-solvers to maintain its status as one of the higher-income countries in Latin America. To accomplish this goal, the Ministry of Education designed the National Plan for Digital Languages to prepare students to compete in an increasingly digital global economy. Now in the early stages of implementing this plan, the government seeks to increase the number of students learning about CS and computational thinking in the coming years.

Computer science (CS) education helps students acquire skills such as computational thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration, among others. As these skills take preeminence in the rapidly changing 21st century, CS education promises to significantly enhance student preparedness for the future of work and active citizenship. Based on prior analysis and expert consultation, the authors selected 11 country, state, and provincial CS-education case studies with lessons that can apply broadly to other education systems. These cases come from diverse global regions and circumstances and have implemented CS education programs for various periods and to different levels of success. As such, the authors have examined information to extract lessons that can lead to successful implementation. This study will focus on the development of CS education in Arkansas. With regular funding, bipartisan political support, and strong executive leadership, Arkansas has made considerable progress at improving CS education since the beginning of the Hutchinson gubernatorial administration in 2015. To help guide key policy decisions, Governor Hutchinson appointed task force groups that included representatives from teacher associations, businesses, and government agencies. These stakeholders gave policymakers influential advice on teacher recruitment and training, student engagement activities, and curriculum standards.

Free and compulsory primary education remains a priority area in the international policy perspective, starting from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 to the formulation of Sustainable Development Goals in 2015. Under the impact of globalization, an impressive expansion in the access to primary education has been observed in recent decades and the global trends in enrolment rates across the developing world have attested this fact. However, many developing countries, such as India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA), are still struggling with the goal of quality primary education for all. The IBSA countries are emerging economies and very proactive in addressing past inequalities prevalent in their countries. With the cooperation of international organizations, national policy planning and other initiatives, these countries have performed quite well in the educational attainment. But even today, these countries have not achieved the goal of quality primary education for all. This paper reviews the attainment of free and compulsory primary education in these countries, along with the challenges faced in the achievement of universal primary education. These challenges may hinder the progress of these countries towards the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal.

California's education system--the largest in the United States--is an essential resource for ensuring strong economic growth in the state. The Career Technical Education Pathways Initiative (referred to as the Initiative in this report), which became law in 2005, brings together community colleges, K-12 school districts, employers, organized labor and community partners to strengthen the connection between school and work. By focusing on priorities such as career pathways and articulation, expanding business and industry engagement and teacher recruitment and professional development, the Initiative enables educational institutions to integrate core academic coursework with technical and occupational knowledge and skills. This double skill set makes students competitive for high-wage careers and prepares them for transfer to four-year colleges. Following an introduction, this report includes the following: (1) Quick facts related to the Initiative, including a cumulative overview of participants and partnerships; (2) Key recommendations based on the evaluation study; (3) Initiative highlights illustrating the key recommendations in action; and (4) A table of all Initiative-funded grant types since 2005.

This bibliography should be useful to educators, researchers, teachers, personnel managers and placement officers, industrial training supervisors, vocational and rehabilitation counselors, and volunteers engaged in full- or part-time work with the backward and illiterate adult. It should serve librarians in the development of professional and special collections of materials for reading courses, and for use in displays and exhibits in connection with general training programs, conferences, workshops, and institutes for illiteracy teachers and administrators. This publication is presented in the hope that it will stimulate the development of new educational materials for and about the illiterate adult and increase one's understanding of the nature, extent, and scope of literacy education as a means of bringing about fuller utilization of the human resources of the world. [Best copy available has been provided.]

Since the 1994 election, South Africa has moved from a politics of separatism to social justice and inclusivity. The White Paper 6 (Department of Education, 2001) on inclusive education policy emphasizes inclusion of all learners in the basic education system, regardless of disability, race, learning style, HIV status etc. This has brought change to classroom dynamics, where the tradition of the classroom is based on reading and writing for "normal" learners, and diverse learning needs related to impairment is "abnormal". Theories of Inclusive Education underpin this paper. Using a qualitative approach, this study explores learners' experiences in the classroom to assess implementation of Inclusive Education. The study reveals that in South Africa the problem of inclusive curriculum implementation still persists and needs special attention from all stakeholders in education. It is also evident that teachers have not been properly prepared for the paradigm shift needed for implementation of an inclusive curriculum. The losers in the process are the learners, as they continuously have negative experiences in the classroom. The paper concludes that in-depth training of the teachers in Inclusive Education is required to ensure that the paradigm shift from the apartheid education system to Inclusive Education is achieved.

For the statistical compilations found in the following pages the data were gathered by means of two questionnaires--one on faculty, students, and degrees; and the other on receipts, expenditures, and property. These questionnaires were sent to all of the 1,709 institutions listed in Office of Education Bulletin 1939, No. 1, "Educational Directory: 1939." This bulletin contains the following parts: (1) General findings and interpretations; (2) Summaries for the United States; (3) Summaries by States; (4) Detail by institutions; and (5) Land-grant colleges and universities. (Contains 104 tables and 4 figures.) [Best copy available has been provided.]

The purpose of this bulletin on child care and parenthood education is to show the present trends of parental education as reported by the home economics departments of the various elementary and secondary schools and institutions of higher education located in different sections of the United States. The policies and practices described are those reported by the schools and institutions herein named. The selected materials on this subject are described as adequately as space would permit. The bulletin is arranged into five chapters. Each chapter is prefaced by a brief introduction explaining the basis for including the specific example cited therein. These examples were selected from a mass of material sent to the Bureau of Education at the request of the United States Commissioner of Education, who addressed circular letters concerning this matter to 48 State departments of public instruction and the District of Columbia, to 1,100 public and private institutions of higher education. Summary of the conference on child training on children in home-management houses held at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, is appended. [Best copy available has been provided.]

In January 2011, teams of government education leaders and grantmakers from 13 states convened for Moving Forward with a Transformative Education Agenda: Practical Solutions for States and Districts, a first-ever national discussion of how grantmakers and state and local education officials might work together to promote elementary and secondary education reform. The states represented included U.S. Department of Education (USDE) "Race to the Top" winners and non-winning applicants. The gathering, coordinated by the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), featured expert presentations on promising education reform efforts, panel discussions, workshops, and structured sessions for state teams to consider how to work together in an era when most states are facing drastic cuts to their education budgets. To ensure that lessons learned from the convening will help to inform the efforts of state education officials and education funders nationally, the Foundation Center conducted confidential interviews with six grantmakers and one regional association leader who attended. They offered a nuanced assessment of the many benefits of this type of convening, as well as identified a number of challenges that will need to be addressed for grantmakers and state and local education leaders to coordinate their efforts most effectively in the future. Highlights from these interviews are discussed in this paper.

This document is the result of the Australian Minister for Education and Training's request to the Higher Education Standards Panel for advisement of options to improve the transparency of higher education student admission policies, while minimizing regulatory impact. The Minister intends to improve the accessibility and comparability of information about the diversity of course entry pathways by ensuring greater transparency of admissions processes and standards. He is concerned about the capacity of some students to complete their courses. The Minister asked the Panel for advice on what more needs to be done. This report discusses the following topics in response to the Minster's request: (1) pathways to higher education; (2) the ATAR--a number that ranks students across each state based on their upper secondary school subject results; (3) the Higher Education Standards Framework; (4) proposed principles that should underpin the Panel's advice and any initiatives to improve transparency in admissions policies and practices; (5) feedback and ideas on principles and possible initiatives. The following are appended: (1) Current Higher Education Standards relating to admissions transparency; (2) Revised (2015) Higher Education Standards (in effect from 1 January 2017); and (3) Higher Education Standards Panel Membership.

As recently as the 1970s, only a small number of children with disabilities were educated in public schools in the U.S. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) changed everything in 1975, mandating that states accepting public funds for education must provide special education services to children with disabilities. The 40th anniversary of IDEA marked decades of national progress toward equal opportunities for children with exceptionalities. Access to support services, pathways to postsecondary education, and promises of lifelong success have been created and sustained. However, while significant progress has been made in the past four decades, issues remain in the provision of special education, particularly for the country's youngest learners. Funding streams for early childhood special education are complex and present challenges in the efficient provision of needed services. Inclusion classrooms in early childhood are rare, which denies access and opportunities for those with special needs to be educated with their peers. Screenings for early learning deficits are neither common nor mandatory in most places, allowing many children who would benefit from additional support to slip through the cracks. This report explores these issues facing young children with exceptionalities. Contains notes.

In October 2014, The National Center for Education Research (NCER) and the National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER), in the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) at the U.S. Department of Education, convened a Technical Working Group (TWG). The purpose of this TWG meeting was to discuss critical education problems and issues on which high-quality research is needed, the development or adaptation of new methodological approaches for addressing these issues, the role of IES research training programs in preparing of the next generation of researchers, and ways to prioritize the use of limited funds to support credible research that impacts policy and practice. The TWG consisted of 17 experts in the field of education research who work in universities and research organizations. The TWG discussion focused on five broad sessions: (1) characteristics of influential research; (2) critical, unaddressed issues in education research; (3) advancing research methods; (4) improving IES's training programs; and (5) targeting resources. This meeting summary covers all sessions of the technical working group and includes both presentations and discussions among participants.

In this second volume of the successful "Exemplars of Assessment in Higher Education," editors Souza and Rose share examples of assessment practice from over fifteen distinct and diverse higher education institutions, including international contributions. Building upon the work of the first volume, the case studies in this book reflect the changes in assessment and higher education in the post-COVID education environment. The institutions that appear in this book were chosen for having an effective assessment approach in one or more of the following areas: career readiness; distance education; diversity, equity, and inclusion; or general education. Each part of the book discusses one of these four areas, with chapters that feature real-life examples from the educators who teach at the college or university. Featuring a Foreword by AAC&U President Lynn Pasquerella, the work highlighted in this book is also aligned with AAC&U's Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education (VALUE) initiative to help educators make the best decisions about measuring student learning. This book is ideal for university educators and assessment practitioners looking to diversify and enhance their assessment practices.