Education & Pedagogy

The academic terms and the periods of the courses related to the language development and communication differs considerably in the programs of the countries which train teachers for the special education department. The aim of this study is to examine the contents and credits of the communication and the language development courses in Teacher Education Programs for hearing-impaired, intellectual disability, gifted and talented multiple disabilities, visual impairment education at the special education department. In this study in which the descriptive research method is used, the data have been collected from the sources of Turkey and European Union member countries, called Agencies of the European Union, Eurydice-Network on Education Systems and Policies in Europe. The courses in Special Education Teacher Training undergraduate programs of higher education institutions of each country stated in the reports of National Education System Descriptions have been examined to reach these data. While there are undergraduate programs for four years of study related to each disability type in Turkey, it has been seen that the department of hearing impaired education teacher training is the department which mainly includes the language development and communication skills courses among mentioned programs. The countries such as Luxembourg, Sweden, Greece, Belgium, Ireland, Finland, and Lithuania give common ground courses of special education department to the preservice teachers in 6 to 7 academic terms.

In all European Union countries have harmonized attitudes on the need and improving the quality geographic of education and his innovating. Modernization of geographic education is unthinkable without quality professional and personal development of teacher's geography. Renewal, modernization and supplement professional knowledge and skills acquired in framework of the initial of geographic education it is considered imperative of contemporary education. This paper analyzes the geographical education research on the example of Serbia, from the perspective of geography teachers, and makes an attempt to determine the extent to which teacher's geography use geography education research in their courses and which possible barriers prevent them use the results of geography education research in Serbian classroom environment. The results showed that 26 % of teachers reported that they subscribe to academic journals about geography education research, while 62.4 % of them said that they just follow the publications geography education research. More than 87.6 % of respondents believe that the use of geography education research improves learning, students' motivation and quality of courses, and almost half of the respondents does not think that it is time and excessive class sizes, a reason not to use geography education research in their courses. Geographic education research is a multidimensional concept and cannot be easily estimate only on the basis one study, and solutions should be sought in advocating for one multimodal approach, in which the quality of geographic education research defined through larger number of different, relevant determinants.

The contribution of education to the overall development of a nation becomes evident especially through higher education. This is because higher education is considered a key to delivering the knowledge required for ensuring sustainable development. Studies reveal a strong positive correlation between higher education participation rates and levels of development, as high levels of education are essential for designing and producing new technologies, and enhancing innovative capacities for the development of a society. While the reforms of higher education in high-income countries have received much attention, relatively little is known about the change dynamics in higher education system in developing countries. Therefore, with this research I want to contribute to a better understanding of higher education system in Africa, from the perspective of the type of pedagogy being practiced frequently and its consequences in producing competent graduates for the world of work by taking Ethiopian public higher education system as a case. To this end, data were collected from selected higher education institutions? officials and instructors using questionnaire and interviews. The collected data were analyzed using mixed method. Findings of the study revealed that despite the offering of on-job pedagogical science trainings in the sample universities, little progress has been made in terms of applying student-centered pedagogy. Most of the instructors in the institutions still predominantly use traditional teaching methods. It is recommended that instructors in higher learning institutions should use critical pedagogy.

Entrepreneurship is valued for its economic and social benefits, but also to cultivate the characteristics required by learners to deal with the demands of the twenty-first century. Entrepreneurship education develops learners' entrepreneurship knowledge, skills, characteristics, and mindsets. Several serious economic and social dilemmas (including high youth unemployment) occur in South Africa, and entrepreneurship education could contribute to addressing these dilemmas. Previous research revealed that entrepreneurship education appears infrequently and in isolated subjects in the South African school curriculum. These entrepreneurship education shortcomings in the South African school curriculum therefore needed to be investigated in an effort to revisit the curriculum to present learners with more opportunities to benefit from effectual entrepreneurship education. To support this quest, a literature review grounded in a constructivist approach to determine international best practice was used to explore how entrepreneurship education is being approached globally. The set of best practices was analysed and compared to current entrepreneurship education in South Africa, using curriculum document analysis, which revealed several areas for improvement of entrepreneurship education in this school curriculum. These insights were used to develop a set of guidelines that could be used to address the entrepreneurship education inadequacies in the current South African school curriculum, thereby contributing to the improvement of South African learners' entrepreneurship education. An advantageous ripple effect could be expected for South Africa if learners utilise their entrepreneurship education to address the economic and social dilemmas that the country has to deal with.

According to the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics, in the fall of 2020, 72.8% of U.S. postsecondary students were enrolled in distance education courses--up from 36.3% in the fall of 2019. While this surge may be explained by a number of factors, one of the most significant factors is the COVID-19-induced pivot to online learning. The rapid and intense expansion in distance education due to COVID-19 offered learners some sense of continuity in their studies, but it also revealed stark inequities in learner resources and access--especially for students of Color and students from lower-income households. Further, as COVID-19 spread, the U.S. roiled in a "twin pandemic" of racial injustice that continued to metastasize--spawning more pain-points such as online environments where racism became unmasked when face-to-face norms were abandoned. These revelations about the shadow side of online learning are particularly concerning in the context of leadership education and its commitment to inclusion, collaboration, and holism. Given this new context for online leadership education, the purpose of this piece is to reflect on how the Journal of Leadership Education has shepherded the journey of online leadership education and what the future of this journey might look like for online leadership educators committed to change. Scaffolded by the Community of Inquiry model, we offer promising practices that address cognitive, social, teaching, and learner presence in the pursuit of culturally relevant/sustaining and equitable online leadership education.

This research attempted to assess the status of distance education implemented in Turkiye during the COVID-19 pandemic based on stakeholders' (students, parents, pre-service teachers, teachers, and academics) opinions and was completed in the phenomenological study framework. With this aim, stakeholders' views within the study's purview were collected during April 2021 with an online semi-structured interview form with pandemic precautions. The data were examined with content analysis using the MAXQDA 2020 qualitative data analysis program. The interview questions principally focused on four themes, namely readiness for distance learning, benefits, adequacy, and continuation. It can be deduced from stakeholder's opinions that though Turkiye was unprepared for distance education, the adaptation eventuated in a short time. There were differences in educational organizations' readiness levels, and the views on infrastructure's inadequacy explained this situation. They found distance education to be positive from psychological, situational, educational, and economic aspects. They deemed it indispensable for education to continue and for the use of technology in education. However, the lack of interaction in distance education, digital impossibilities, and other factors were the negative aspects. The stakeholders participating in this research emphasized that rather than being adequate, distance education was inadequate due to interaction- and infrastructure-related issues. Though there were negative opinions about the continuation of distance education in the transition to formal education after the COVID-19 pandemic precautions ended, findings revealed that it may continue simultaneously with formal education and may provide compensatory or supportive education. Additionally, further research is needed regarding the generalizability and educational outcomes of distance education implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic.

STEM education (based on the integration of the science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines) has recently been an integral part of education system and curriculum in many countries aiming to be more technologically competitive in this age of innovation. While the importance of STEM education has gradually increasing in education system with the complexities of today's world, revealing pre-service teachers' mind maps on STEM education and preparing them for STEM education is a crucial issue since the readiness of the teachers affects the quality of education. In this context, the aim of this study is to reveal pre-service science and mathematics teachers' mind maps on STEM Education through STEM images. The research group consists of 6 pre-service teachers (3 of them are pre-service science teachers (PST) and 3 of them are pre-service mathematics teachers (PMT)) who are 4th grade level students from a public university in Istanbul, Turkey. In current research, case study design was used. The data of study were collected through drawings and focus group discussion. The data were analyzed with thematic analysis through Integrated Teaching (IT) Framework. As a result, 41 codes about pre-service teachers' mind maps on STEM education were determined under 14 categories of 5 themes of IT Framework. The results of this study are crucial in terms of having potential to guide educational policy makers, curriculum developers, researchers and in-service and pre-service teachers about STEM education.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the agenda of mathematics education. This change will be analyzed by looking at three trends in mathematics education: the use of digital technology, philosophy of mathematics education, and critical mathematics education. Digital technology became a trend in mathematics education in response to the arrival of a different kind of artifact to the mathematics classroom. It was thrust into the spotlight as the pandemic suddenly moved classrooms online around the world. Challenges specific to mathematics education in this context must be addressed. The link between the COVID-19 pandemic and digital technology in education also raises epistemological issues highlighted by philosophy of mathematics education and critical mathematics education. Using the notion that the basic unit of knowledge production throughout history is humans-with-media, I discuss how humans are connected to the virus, how it has laid bare social inequality, and how it will change the agendas of these three trends in mathematics education. I highlight the urgent need to study how mathematics education happens online for children when the home environment and inequalities in access to digital technologies assume such significant roles as classes move on-line. We need to understand the political role of agency of artifacts such as home in collectives of humans-with-media-things, and finally we need to learn how to implement curricula that address social inequalities. This discussion is intertwined with examples.

Policy and professional standards shape the way that special education teachers partner with parents. Such partnership is key to engaging parents in the process of special education and can serve as the foundation for collaboration and information sharing. Although the literature describes recommendations for how teachers can provide information to parents, few studies examine what information teachers provide. The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate how teachers perceive school information sharing and parents' knowledge relative to special education. To understand these perspectives, we developed and piloted the Parent Knowledge and Resources in Special Education--Teacher Version survey, with a group of 142 special education teachers. Results indicated that 67.6% of teachers perceived parents to be satisfied or very satisfied with the special education information received from schools. However, teachers had varied perspectives on how well parents understand special education, and the majority (56%) did not feel resources and supports to help parents better understand special education exist. Teachers perceived that schools most frequently encouraged parents to access information through conversations with teachers (75.9%), conversations with school administrators (44.4%), and paper handouts provided by the school (41.9%). Teachers also reported that how well school districts provided information varied by special education topic. We also identify implications of the study results and areas for future research.

International conventions state that the right to an education is a basic human right which countries are obliged to guarantee. In Serbia, as in most countries, this right is guaranteed by the Constitution. However, data on a large part of the structure of the Serbian population with a lower level of educational attainment indicated that one part of the citizens did not realize this right since they did not continue their education after primary school. Therefore, the aim was to determine how the citizens of Serbia evaluated the state of education in Serbia as a whole (its quality), the accessibility (whether there are fair opportunities in education for all categories of the population), and the significance of education in Serbia (whether the knowledge acquired, and skills developed are relevant for employment). The results were obtained by analyzing the latest data from the European Social Survey (ESS) from 2018/2019 in Serbia on a sample of 2043 interviewees. The study was carried out by trained interviewers, in face-to-face interviews. The initial hypotheses were confirmed: (a) a low prevalence of high grades for the state of education as a whole, the accessibility, and significance of education in Serbia, and (b) that there is a difference in the perception of education depending on some of the socio-demographic characteristics of the interviewees. The creation of a favorable social and institutional environment and changes in the education policy are preconditions for the improvement of the quality and accessibility of education in Serbia.

This paper argues that micro-credentials are gig credentials for the gig economy. Micro-credentials are short competency-based industry-aligned units of learning, while the gig economy comprises contingent work by individual 'suppliers'. Both can be facilitated by (often the same) digital platforms, and both are underpinned by social relations of precariousness in the labour market and in society. They are mutually reinforcing and each has the potential to amplify the other. Rather than presenting new opportunities for social inclusion and access to education, they contribute to the privatisation of education by unbundling the curriculum and blurring the line between public and private provision in higher education. They accelerate the transfer of the costs of employment preparation, induction, and progression from governments and employers to individuals. Micro-credentials contribute to 'disciplining' higher education in two ways: first by building tighter links between higher education and workplace requirements (rather than whole occupations), and through ensuring universities are more 'responsive' to employer demands in a competitive market crowded with other types of providers. Instead of micro-credentials, progressive, democratic societies should seek to ensure that all members of society have access to a meaningful qualification that has value in the labour market and in society more broadly, and as a bridge to further education. This is a broader vision of education in which the purpose of education is to prepare individuals to live lives they have reason to value, and not just in the specifics required of particular jobs.

This is the first of five volumes of essays in the form of recommendations for the improvement of programs, services, and activities offered through vocational-technical education in North Carolina. The volume explains the rationale for, and comments on, 17 recommendations prepared by the State Advisory Council on Vocational Education for fiscal year July 1985-June 1986. Topics covered by the 17 resolutions are the following: (1) the need to better link planning for economic development and postsecondary education and training; (2) enhancing the image of vocational education; (3) the need for teamwork; (4) striving to make vocational education all it can be; (5) need for more opportunities for the unemployed; (6) preparing teachers to learn to teach; (7) strengthening education by cooperating to eliminate the federal deficit); (8) practical applications of vocational education; (9) the need for food service occupations training; (10) service industry jobs for changing careers; (11) a new role and name for the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics; (12) training workers for small businesses; (13) treating all high school courses equally; (14) supporting food service occupations training programs; (15) upholding the value of all education; (16) the need for more trained workers for industry; and (17) certifying automotive mechanics teachers by an external agency. (KC)

This report summarizes the content and implementation strategies of the orientation seminar that the Unesco Institute for Education (UIE) has conducted to acquaint Arab states with strategies for developing postliteracy and continuing education programs in a lifelong learning framework. The first two sections outline the UIE project on the development of learning strategies for postliteracy and continuing education and the conceptual and methodological aspects of the seminar. Provided next are synopses of the presentations addressing the following topics: a global overview of literacy and postliteracy programs with special reference to the Arab states, literacy and postliteracy programs in the perspective of lifelong education, coordination of postliteracy with other development concerns, some curricular aspects of postliteracy and continuing education, learning strategies for postliteracy and continuing education, problems and issues of special significance for Arab states, evaluation of postliteracy and continuing education programs, and study visits. National and regional guidelines for further action are set forth. The guide concludes with an evaluation of the seminar and a list of suggested follow-up actions. Appendixes to this report include a daily time schedule and lists of countries where case studies have been conducted, countries and regional organizations that have participated in the seminars on postliteracy and continuing education, participants, and documents presented during the conference. (MN)

Patterns of occurrence and type of computer use, major, gender, and computer anxiety were analyzed for teacher education students. Over a 4-year period beginning in the fall semester of 1986, 914 teacher education students provided data for this study while they were enrolled in a mandatory computer awareness module. All of the subjects were education majors with the following concentrations: English; science; social studies; elementary education; mathematics; special education; and physical education. In addition to providing data for the study, the students responded to a computer anxiety instrument--a modified version of Spielberger's Self-Evaluation Questionnaire. Males (n=277) had significantly lower levels of computer anxiety than did females (n=637). Almost half of the students had no previous computer experience, and many were highly apprehensive toward computers. Mathematics education and science education majors were significantly less anxious toward computers than were students with other majors. Students in all seven majors had very little experience in running content-area software. Across the 4 years studied, there was a lower percentage of no prior computer experience and a higher percentage of previous use of content area software and word processing, spread sheet, or data base software. Three implications for teacher education are highlighted: (1) course designers should recognize that many students have no prior experience with computers; (2) practical uses of content area software and managerial types of software should be the focus for areas other than mathematics education; and (3) computer instruction should be driven by the student's major. Four tables contain study data. (SLD)

The final paper in a series of 17 studies on new technologies in Canadian education, this report focuses on the issues raised throughout the earlier papers. It begins with a summary of the educational activities in the use of each technology in education, i.e., film, television, and videotape; radio and audiotape; computer technology; teleconferencing; videotex/Telidon; satellite technology; and videodisc technology. The statements and conclusions in this summary are based on information, examples, and comments contained in the first 16 papers. Also discussed are issues and concerns relating to the use of technology in teaching and learning; planning for the development of technology in education; and changes in education. Essays written by nine representatives from educational institutions to present a cross-section of issues, opinions, and research on how learning can be enhanced through the use of technology are then presented: (1) "Views on Technology in Canadian Education" (Joseph Koenig); (2) "Technology in Education for the Future" (Catherine Ann Cameron); (3) "Policy Issues Relating to Computer Use in Education" (Tom Rich); (4) "The CAI Dilemma" (Robert J. D. Jones); (5) "The Thorny Question of Software" (Louise Dubuc); (6) "Planning for Technological Changes in Postsecondary Institutions" (James A. Humphries); (7) "Educational Technology" (Denis Hlynka); (8) "Integration and Intelligence" (Michel Umbriaco); and (9) "New Connections between Technology and Education" (Sylvia Gold). Short biographies of the nine contributors are included. (DB)