Education & Pedagogy

The purpose of this article is to examine the foundational principles and practices of distance education for the purpose of understanding recent developments in the areas of online and blended learning. It is argued that mainstream distance education has not embraced the full collaborative potential of online learning. Distance education continues to hold to the principles of autonomy and self-direction. On the other hand, online learning practices in traditional face-to-face higher education are increasingly being adapted to support collaborative and blended learning opportunities. The question is whether the conceptual development of distance education has reached an evolutionary dead-end.

The aim of this paper is to discuss two perspectives in relation to intercultural education and diversity in Sweden. One of the perspectives concerns the historical and current situation of the five Swedish national minorities with a special focus on education. The second perspective is related to religious diversity and education, as connected to an increasingly democratic, plural and inclusive society. Both perspectives are highly relevant when analysing intercultural education in a specific national context. The last section highlights two main discourses which have been predominant during the last century in relation to education and diversity in Sweden. (Contains 13 notes.)

Medical education institutions frequently simulate interactions between future health professionals and standardized patients. This manuscript describes a partnership between a teacher preparation institution and a nearby medical institution, outlining specific procedures associated with the use of standardized parents, students, and paraprofessionals in helping future teachers and school leaders navigate common problems of practice. Implications center on the potential of this pedagogy to help bridge the gap between teacher preparation and practice as well as the applicability of this pedagogical approach to other higher education professional preparation programs.

The UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) is yet to feature in major government initiatives in New Zealand. Many opportunities for deriving maximum benefit from the DESD, however, may be noted. These opportunities are based around four key areas: (1) government policy and national reports; (2) formal education initiatives; (3) local government, community, and business education; and (4) tertiary education. In this article, the author discusses these four key areas and describes the opportunities for deriving maximum benefit from the Decade in New Zealand. The author also discusses the challenges that the country faces in its implementation, and offers tips on how these challenges could be addressed.

The present paper studies the general equilibrium implications of two types of education policy in an overlapping generations model. We examine education transfers, which augment inherited private education spending, and public investment on economy-wide human capital, which provides externalities to individual human capital accumulation. The government determines jointly the tax rate and the allocation of tax revenues among the two types of education policy. The optimal division of public spending between the education policy instruments and the associated tax rate depend on the elasticities of human capital accumulation with regard to education transfers and public investment on economy-wide human capital. (Contains 4 figures and 12 notes.)

Sustaining China's rapid economic growth in the future will come to depend in large part on the quantity and quality of the human resources it can mobilize. The paper considers the prospects for higher education financing, and highlights the importance of improving equity in access to higher education as a precondition for a sustainable expansion in the higher education sector. The paper aims to throw light on two key questions: What are the links existing between current financing arrangements and equity in access to higher education? What kind of financing arrangements could ensure increasing access to higher education? (Contains 4 tables and 2 notes.)

This article proposes a conceptual framework to examine the development of the teacher education system in contemporary China. Within the framework, three development periods, including the era of shifan, and the era of post-shifan, the era of professional teacher education, are investigated in terms of governance, institutional structures, and resource allocation. With the central government decentralising managerial control over education, the governance issue of teacher education is becoming significant in the era of post-shifan. At the end professional teacher education is suggested as the future long-term goal for reforming the teacher education system. (Contains 1 table and 5 footnotes.)

Quality is the lifeblood of private institutions of higher education; building a teacher base is the guarantee of teaching quality in those institutions. Although there are still some problems, teachers in private institutions of higher education in Hubei will mature and develop if they are given serious attention. A concerted effort needs to be made to develop a rational structure and ensure teacher quality, while management should be strengthened and further education for teachers should be put in place. A good external environment for teachers also needs to be created. (Contains 4 tables.)

In this article, the author presents two emerging state-level public policy trends in the United States, one toward universalizing pre-school services, and one toward systems for delivering early education and care. At this point, it is not clear whether the effect of the two trends will be to unite or divide the field of early education and care. The first creates a clear vision of pre-school as education, the second builds a system of early education and care. Thus, future government support of early education and care will be different, depending on how each state organizes its resources.

Historically, teacher education in special education has focused on identifying characteristics of various disabilities and promoting best practices for intervention and remediation. This article introduces a disability studies approach to teacher education in special education. Disability studies is an interdisciplinary area of study that utilizes the lenses from social sciences and humanities to view disability from personal, social, cultural, historical, critical, and literary perspectives. Pre-service teachers who took such a course were interviewed with regard to their views on disability and inclusion. The results suggest: (1) the importance of providing a disability studies approach to future teachers; and (2) ways in which disability studies in teacher education can continue to be developed.

Although the famous Blair mantra "education, education, education" was applied by his government mainly to the compulsory education sector, there was no shortage of initiatives in Higher Education (HE). The scene was set by the Dearing Report in 1997 which effectively determined the direction of Blair's first term. The second term enabled Blair to pursue further an agenda of public sector reform, yet the simultaneous commitment to market principles of choice and diversity and to social inclusion created major tensions and dilemmas. Funding the expanded HE was the stimulus which led to Dearing, and has continued to be the major challenge of the ten-year period.

The national Commission on the Future of Higher Education provides some deserved criticism of the way U.S. higher education currently works. Insofar as higher education institutions are the intellectual and economic engines that power New England, it is prudent for them to re-examine higher education in New England today from the perspective of the commission's report, "A Test of Leadership". The changes that are required do not reside in the recommendations of the Spellings Commission report, but in the commitment and wisdom of New England policymakers, business leaders, education and higher education officials whom the report calls to lead.

Most of the basic features of the American higher education sector started to evolve during the latter half of the nineteenth century. In response to the deficient demand in higher education, the suppliers (higher education institutions) adopted various marketing strategies to stay afloat in the market. Such strategies not only contributed a great deal to stabilise the higher education market, but also had a lasting impact on the higher education sector. This paper examines the way in which the higher education sector endured during the latter half of the nineteenth century. This analysis offers some suggestions for higher education policy-makers. (Contains 110 footnotes.)

How should one think about assessment in general education--or what is sometimes called liberal education--in the pluralistic environment of American higher education? Generalizations about longitudinal collegiate assessment are difficult, not least because of the remarkable range of four-year institutions and the students who attend them. Nevertheless, this author firmly believes that there is need to try to assess the effectiveness of liberal education. In this article, he discusses the importance of creating the norms and benchmarks that will not only help institutions to help themselves improve learning but also enable higher education to move ahead nationally to improve the quality of undergraduate education, and to reconceive their goals.

College students studying art traditionally host a senior art show displaying the works included in their portfolio before graduating. Why not borrow this tradition of a senior art show and apply it to physical education? Currently, most institutions of higher education ask their physical education teacher education (PETE) candidates to prepare portfolios, hard copy or electronic, as a graduation requirement. This article will explain how physical education departments can shake the dust off these portfolios and create a dynamic showcase of PETE candidates' work, thus transitioning seniors from preservice to professional educators. (Contains 1 table.)