Education & Pedagogy

This brief viewpoint piece depicts educational (dis)engagements apparent in researching and (re)designing higher education in and through "Accessions". "Accessions", a collaborative research-design project, probed at how cultures, climates and conditions of higher education may be reproducing or reshaping social inequalities and divisions. Here, questions are asked about how these might be challenged within and potentially beyond the specific locale of one university campus. This research-design project hopes to enable a critical perspective on issues of "participation", "impact", "engagement" and "internationalisation", where regulations and measures may be resisted and disrupted. (Contains 1 figure.)

Is business education at Catholic colleges and universities different than business education at secular institutions? This study assesses the current state of business education at Catholic colleges and universities based on a national survey of business school deans and faculty members and an audit of business unit web sites. Results suggest that business education at Catholic institutions could be more distinctive in reflecting the religious identity of the institution. Curricular recommendations are offered for mission-driven business education with a particular focus on Catholic identity and ethics education.

Many undergraduate teacher education programs still treat technology as an elective, instead of an integral and inseparable part of the curriculum. So when "T.H.E. Journal" set out to find the best program for training tomorrow's teachers, it found one at a K-12 school district in Kansas. The Blue Valley School District in Overland Park, Kansas, created its Center for Advanced Professional Studies in 2009 to meet a need for project-based, hands-on education for tomorrow's workforce. The school district's teacher training program models pedagogy and technology for tomorrow's teacher's while they are today's high school students.

Since 1979, the American Samoa Department of Education and the University of Hawai'i have partnered to provide education and training for American Samoan teachers. Beginning in 2009, these efforts have focused on teachers in the middle grades. This article describes the context, program structure, and implementation of a graduate degree program in middle level education developed for teachers on the Pacific island of American Samoa. Implications for designing transnational degree programs involving distance learning are discussed. (Contains 2 figures.)

The paper explores the role of the Society for the Provision of Education in Rural Australia (SPERA) and the challenges it has faced as the primary voice for Australian rural educators. The paper charts the origins of SPERA, and the contributions of key people involved in its foundation. The paper then examines the advocacy and impact of SPERA through its initiatives in establishing an internationally recognised national conference, the creation of Australia's only specifically rural education journal, "Education in Rural Australia" and the recognition of exceptional rural education institutions through its "Australia Rural Education Award" program.

Special education administrators must be prepared for their leadership roles in inclusive, culturally diverse, standards-based school settings. These challenges create the need for new skills, required for effective special education leaders in the 21st century. In this article, the authors examine the standards used to prepare special education administrators, and they offer new insights into the knowledge and skills needed to facilitate the inclusion of diverse students with disabilities in standards-based classrooms. (Contains 1 table.)

The article seeks to further debate on what we mean by education and how it is to be distinguished from incipient indoctrination. Starting from the politicisation of education, it draws attention to three powerful agendas impacting on the education systems of the West: positivism, utilitarianism, and inclusivism. Intertwined in various ways, these agendas have had the effect of silently restricting understanding of education, moving it closer to a form of control and policing. Some discussion of their impact on music education is given to help clarify what is at stake. A substantial critique of these agendas is then offered before concluding with a brief indication of a way forward.

Home school education has a rich history. It is embedded in America's most early form of education practice, with character education being a central component. By the 1960s, however, home school education developed mostly into adoption by extreme groups. First, the Left adopted the protocol as a means of implementing their non-traditional approach to societal milieu. Following court cases that removed religion from the public schools, home education became dominated by fundamental, then evangelical parents. Presently, home schooling is a significant movement that public school educators cannot simply ignore as "fringe". The wide spread use of the internet likely will propel home education's popularity via distance education mediums.

Standards are the results of concerted efforts to improve the quality of education found in distance education. Legal and ethical standards are needed to ensure a positive educational environment. Participants from different cultural, physical, economical, and intellectual backgrounds should have equal access to all the positive aspects of distance education. Standards support the consistent ways to maintain high quality distance education via collaborations among different regional institutions. They ensure the efficiency and usability of learning by reducing the differences between learning experiences of different regions. The standards allow all stakeholders access and adapt learning experiences based on their needs and learning goals. (Contains 1 table.)

Advocacy for music education has become a major professional activity that is not always understood by music educators. Education decision makers--boards of education, legislators, government policy makers--must appreciate why music education is important to society so they can make informed decisions about any number of issues that affect music in schools. The principal voice for music education advocacy in the USA is the MENC: The National Association for Music Education, which provides a model for professional advocacy at the national level. Other countries have different models. It will be healthy for music educators to become familiar with models of successful advocacy in other countries. (Contains 1 note.)

Environmental education in Poland has a long history, but has advanced especially in recent years. The need to implement it within systems of formal and non-formal education is noted in many government documents. The educational reform introduced in 1999 changed the goals and methods of teaching environmental education in the school system. At present it is taught at every grade level. According to regulations it is to be incorporated within all subjects, mainly in the sciences and also as an interdisciplinary environmental education track. This paper describes how environmental issues are taught and what results are achieved in Polish schools.

This article aims to describe and reflect on the new early childhood teacher education curriculum in Turkey. The new curriculum is part of a large-scale reform agenda to improve education at all levels. The article begins with a brief history of early childhood education and early childhood teacher education in Turkey. Then, the needs for the curriculum revision and major characteristics of the revised curriculum are discussed. The article concludes with brief discussion about the innovations and suggestions for future research dealing with the implementation and effectiveness of the revised curriculum.

The authors first explore the changing European society and its impact on higher education. This forms a background to the main focus of the paper--the effectiveness of remedial or developmental education. The paper then provides an overview of the core elements of successful remedial or developmental courses and summarizes developments in online education and computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). The added value of IT in remedial education is subsequently examined in depth through a review of the literature and research. Finally, addressing the role of information and communications technology in online remedial education, the authors clarify the connections between the key components of remedial and online education.

Time and temporality have received little attention in the consumerism, marketing or, until recently, higher education literature. This paper attempts to compare the notions of timing implicit in education as "paideia" (transitional personal growth) with that implicit in consumerism and the marketing practices which foster it. This investigation uses Heidegger's three notions of being and their corresponding concepts of time to understand the phenomena of education and consumerism. It suggests that the consumerist notion of time can changes what higher education might be through how individuals understand their being. In my conceptual discussion I challenge higher education to resist its being temporalized by consumerism. (Contains 1 table and 5 notes.)

Teacher education in China has entered an important period of transformation which requires institutional innovation and systematic construction. Teacher education institutions should be gradually reshaped to meet the needs of elementary and secondary schools that are run on an autonomous basis. A system of teaching qualification certification and teacher education institution accreditation should be established. Further, a system of curriculum appraisal of teacher education as well as the performance assessment of teacher education institutions should also be set up. In the meantime, making corresponding policies is necessary to accommodate the reform and development of teacher education.