Education & Pedagogy

Testimony given before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Elementary, Secondary and Vocational Education regarding the Gifted and Talented Children's Education Act (H.R. 3263) is presented. This legislation targets federal assistance to support state and local programs for gifted and talented students in the areas of personnel development, model programs, technical assistance, and research. Testimony was provided by the following individuals and organizations: Coalition for the Advancement of Gifted Education; Mario Biaggi (Congressional Representative); Council for Exceptional Children; Association for the Gifted; James J. Gallagher (professor, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill); Gifted Child Society, Inc.; Program in Gifted Education (University of Utah); Gifted and Talented Unit, New York City Board of Education; Nick J. Rahall, II (Congressional Representative); and Altamae Whitehill, the Coordinator of Gifted Programs, Cheney Public Schools, Washington. (CB)

The expansion and diversification of postsecondary education in the United States has led to greater options for students and prospective students for pursuing a college degree. With the roll out and scale up of sophisticated education technology systems, an important trend in higher education today is distance education. Despite the growing prevalence of distance learning opportunities and the expanding body of research on distance education, research on the college-going decisions of distance learners is sparse. As more students enroll in distance-based postsecondary education programs, it is increasingly important to understand how and why students make the decision to enroll in collegiate degree-granting programs. This study bridges the college choice and distance education literatures to posit a new model of college choice to shed light on students' decisions to enroll in a distance-based, nontraditional degree program.

Graduate assistants have an impact on undergraduate education through course instruction. For preservice agricultural education teachers, experiences with teaching assistants may be particularly influential, as their observations of educators could impact their perceptions and beliefs toward teaching. This qualitative study utilized data collected through individual interviews of six preservice agricultural education teachers at the University of Florida to explore preservice agricultural education teachers' perceptions regarding the quality of education received when instructed by a teaching assistant. We found that participants held mixed feelings about teaching assistants' impact on educational quality, and offered five areas of quality indicators participants used to gauge teaching assistant quality. The findings can be utilized to guide teacher educators in addressing students' experiences with teaching assistants in order to enhance their overall educational experience.

In this article, I argue (1) affirmative action diverts attention from more urgent needs of racial justice in education--better quality K-12 education, and better quality and more accessible public higher education; (2) the increasing wealth of students at affirmative action institutions is a sign of diminished quality of those students compared to those at less selective institutions, who are comparatively disproportionately black and Latino; and (3) aligning the standard rankings of colleges with the quality of student (and quality of instruction at the different kinds of institution) would benefit black and Latino students as a group much more than affirmative action does.

This article discusses concerns about how Neil M. Gorsuch, a U.S. Supreme Court nominee, might influence decisions regarding cases involving the appropriate scope of services guaranteed by federal special-education law, government aid to religious institutions providing educational services, and how intellectual property law applies to sports uniform design and other education-related decisions. After reviewing roughly two dozen of the major cases in which Gorsuch has ruled, the author states that he found Gorsuch's work to be sensible, law-bound, and quite readable. In this article, the author sketches out some features of Gorsuch's jurisprudence and describes specific decisions with relevance for education. The following topics are discussed: (1) similarities and differences with Antonin Scalia; (2) education decisions; and (3) key decisions outside education.

This systematic literature review examined research on stakeholders' beliefs about addressing the general education curriculum in general education classrooms with students with severe disabilities (SD). The investigation was limited to studies published in peer-reviewed journals between 1997 and 2015. Ten articles were identified and then analyzed using an inductive coding approach and thematic analysis. Secondary data analysis revealed four major themes centered on (a) method of access, (b) type of curriculum, (c) barriers/concerns, and (d) benefits. Overall, stakeholders were found to perceive social inclusion as more important than involvement and progress in the general education curriculum for students with SD. Stakeholders also perceived numerous challenges around facilitating access to the general education curriculum in general education classrooms.

In light of the lack of scholarly studies on the determination of quality in bioethics education, this paper aims to elaborate the concept of quality, focus on its understanding in education and explore a definition of quality in bioethics education. The findings of the literature-based research indicate that quality is a multidimensional concept and its definition is largely dependent on the needs, expectations and perceptions of customers. Furthermore, in regard to quality in education, the plethora of stakeholders and different goals of each stakeholder preclude producing a unanimous definition of quality. After examining certain definitions and approaches of quality in other disciplines, quality in bioethics education is described as "conformance to the goals". These goals refer to increasing ethical knowledge; improving ethical skills to strengthen ethical sensitivity, awareness and judgement; developing ethical behaviour; and promoting cultural competence.

This paper discusses the relevance of lifelong learning vis-à-vis the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and stresses the need for an approach blending formal education, non-formal and informal learning. The role of Open and Distance Learning (ODL) in moving beyond formal education and the importance of integrating pedagogy, andragogy and heutagogy in lifelong learning are raised as key factors in ensuring that education and learning can generate positive externalities and impact livelihoods. Through a case study in the agricultural sector, this paper analyses the role of lifelong learning in empowering smallholders of backyard poultry enterprises in Kenya and argues that lifelong learning needs to be placed in appropriate social and economic contexts to generate outcomes and impacts such as empowerment.

This paper focuses on the limitations of the Eurocentric modernist framework that undergirds Freirean theory and critical pedagogy in relation to critical peace education, highlighting in particular the contributions of post-colonial and decolonial thinking. The paper posits that critical approaches to peace education need to consider these limitations in pushing critical peace education to engage more postcolonial and decolonial thinking. A renewal of critical peace education that integrates the critiques of both decolonial and postcolonial perspectives will provide productive possibilities for revitalizing the transformative orientation within critical peace education and decolonizing the work of research and pedagogical praxis in peace education. This means to evoke discourses and practices that move away from the dominant categories of Eurocentric thought and engage explicitly with the ways in which understandings and pedagogies of peace education are implicated in modernity and coloniality.

This article describes a scientific and practical journey through the worlds of mathematics education and development education/global education. It explores one link in detail: critical mathematics education and the competency 'mathematical modelling' in theory and practice. It describes a case study of a secondary school in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, based on a model of critical research. A central theme is the value of a holistic, self-organized learning process in which global and mathematical competencies and skills are combined. The research identifies the value such a process provides in helping students understand their role in a global society, including recommendations for schools, policy, and research.

The authors review the concept of Tong Shi (Chinese characters omitted) in ancient Chinese philosophical texts, illustrate the Chinese cultural attributes unique to the characters Tong and Shi, and confirm that the name and essence of Tong Shi Education has a clear directivity and irreplaceable coverage to university general education in contemporary China. To use "Tong Shi" to refer to general education can facilitate the establishment of a modern higher education concept that deeply rooted in Chinese traditions. Based on substantial historic sources, the authors also argue that Tong Shi Education as an educational concept that links both the past to the present and has global significance, was created out of the internal requirements of China's reforms as Chinese universities are facing modern transformations. [This article was translated by Jeff Keller.]

This article reports the findings of a joint unit plan critique project between two preservice teacher cohorts seeking teacher certification in general education and special education respectively. The paper addressed three questions: 1) What common affordances does this joint project have for the general and special education preservice teachers? 2) What unique affordances does it have for each of the groups? 3) What do the preservice teachers learn about the use of visuals, technology, and UDL principles to create accessible math lessons for all students? The results showed that the project impacted positively on the preservice teachers by allowing them to gain deeper understanding of professional collaboration and use of technology and visual resources to differentiate instruction for all students.

The Washington Accord is an internationally recognized agreement in engineering education of undergraduates. China joined the agreement as the 18th member country in 2016. The exploration technology and engineering major of China University of Petroleum has obtained the professional certification from international engineering education system and will adopt the international standards of personnel training that is substantially equivalent to the Washington Accord to train students. Based on the personal experience of two years of study abroad combining with the major, the author compares the difference of engineering education at home and abroad. At the same time, according to the domestic actual situation of education and the overall situation of students, the author gives corresponding opinions and improvement methods.

In this article, teacher education reforms in Germany were analysed from a Japanese outsider's viewpoint. To describe the feature of "Germany" is never easy because of its diversity; however, from an outsider's viewpoint, certain unified features can be made clear. The symbol of today's reform is the teacher education standards from federal level symbolized with content standardisation. Most of all, its influence is radicalized in the first stage of teacher education--university. In the first stage, the framework regularising at a European level through the Bologna Process pushes the reform from behind. Through data analysis as well as field research in different states of Germany, the features of reform influence are described.

The main contention of this paper is that the interrelationship between ideology and policy shapes both the overall organisation of refugee education and the operational practices and procedures of staff working to provide education for refugees. Accordingly, this paper tries to answer how the education dimension of the Syrian refugee crisis is managed by the central education authorities in Turkey by assessing the political dynamics and milieu regarding the education of refugees. Building on a document analysis and interviews, this article traces educational administration of Syrian children with a focus on the political dynamics at play affecting the status quo in national education agenda in Turkey. While the impact of the refugee crisis on the greater national education agenda is revealed, the trade-offs involved in adopting certain governance strategies including decentralisation and recentralization is explored.