Developing preservice teachers' global understanding through computer-mediated communication technology

This study examines preservice teachers' conceptual understanding of global education subsequent to participation in an asynchronous web-based multinational project to discuss issues related to cultural diversity and global challenges. Data included 59 preservice teachers' online messages and reflective essays. Six perspectives emerged from this inquiry: global education as cultural learning and understanding, fostering tolerance, addressing global issues, teaching global connections and collaborations, promoting peace, and critical understanding of global issues and events. The findings suggest that the online discussion provided a unique opportunity for participants to interact with teachers and students from different countries in an authentic context.     

Preparing early childhood educators for global education: the implications of prior learning

This paper outlines the increasing cultural diversity of Australia’s education settings and explicates the global education movement and the new Australian Early Years Learning Framework. It discusses the implication of these factors for early childhood education practice and early childhood teacher education. The key research question considered in this paper is what prior learnings do early childhood educators utilise to consider global education? Data are presented on a research project that explores the prior learning of pre‐service early childhood educators at a major Australian university. The paper shows that, unlike primary and secondary pre‐service teachers, most early childhood education pre‐service teachers have significant professional experiences in educational settings. These prior experiences have a significant impact on pre‐service early childhood educators’ knowledge, beliefs and attitudes in the area of global education and align strongly with the global education curriculum movement and new national curriculum.     

Researching the competence-based curriculum: preface to a case study of four urban secondary schools

This introductory article accompanies three further articles forming a case study research project undertaken to describe the experience of four urban secondary schools implementing a competence-based curriculum for students in their first year of secondary education. The nature of such competence-based curricula is discussed in the context of secondary schools before providing an outline of the context of each of the case study schools. A democratic and emancipatory view of education provides the rationale for the development of transferable competencies, and this is considered with respect to the challenges of engaging in a cross-disciplinary approach to the curriculum. These challenges are viewed through the lens of Bernstein's concepts of strong and weak framing and horizontal and vertical discourses. Each of the accompanying articles takes up a different aspect of education, focusing on curriculum planning, teaching and learning, and leadership and management respectively. Further challenges with regard to changes in the English curriculum are briefly reflected upon. Finally an outline of the case study methodology which was employed in the study is provided.     

Suzhi,Relevance, and the New Curriculum

There have been ongoing discussions about the most recent curriculum reform in China. The new curriculum aims at a more quality-oriented (suzhi) education and producing more well-rounded citizens to meet the challenges of global competition. However, it is questioned how suzhi education is possible with entrance examination still being the sole sorting mechanism. A semester-long ethnography in a rural middle school in northwest China reveals how rural students face many challenges with the new curriculum. Based on interviews, analyses of textbooks, and observations of classroom teaching, the study examines how rural students question the relevance of their curriculum and further the meaning of formal schooling. In addition to the dichotomy between an exam-oriented and quality-oriented curriculum, students are also troubled by the dichotomy between general/academic education and relevant/practical education. The study raises concerns about the urban-centered curriculum and how the rural community's absence in the picture has led to rural students' increasing disengagement in schooling and even dropout. It also reveals how the substance of suzhi education and the new curriculum have further reduced rural students' chance to move upward socially. The article concludes by pushing for discussions on how formal schooling can better serve rural children and youth.     

“未来”离我们有多远——intel未来教育项目的冲击与困惑

英特尔未来教育项目自2000年起开始在全国范围内开展,这一项目给广大一线教师带来了课程与教学观念的诸多启发与冲击,同时也给一线教师带来了不少的困惑,引发了他们对整个基础教育阶段课程与教学问题的思考与追问。     

新课程与新教师

新一轮基础教育课程改革是一项意义重大、影响深远、任务艰巨、复杂的系统工程，它提出了一系列全新的理念：关注学生个性化发展、倡导课程的综合化以及课程管理的民主化等等。新理念要求教师做出相应的变化，转变旧有角色，成为学生的组织者、引导者、促进者；反思性实践者；课程开发者和行动研究者，做一个新型的教师，以迎接新课程的挑战，推动教师专业化发展进程。     

"Globaleyes": a partnership between The Nippon Foundation (Japan) and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (United States)

In a rapidly changing world where postsecondary educators of men and women who are deaf face myriad challenges preparing these men and women to enter a global economy, there is a pressing need for multinational collaboration and partnerships that view current and emerging challenges with "globaleyes." The National Technical Institute for the Deaf at the Rochester Institute of Technology and The Nippon Foundation of Japan formed a foundation/education partnership that led to the establishment of the Postsecondary Education Network International (PEN-International), a collaborative and cooperative network of colleges and universities around the world that provide postsecondary education for students who are deaf or hard of hearing. The network now consists of more than 25 institutions in nine countries.     

Curriculum change and climate change: Inside outside pressures in higher education

In higher education today, institutions are facing a number of challenges—including the challenge to create future-proof graduates. Higher education institutions have a particular mandate to develop future leaders and decision-makers capable of understanding and providing solutions to complex, global issues. Education programmes that focus on multi-disciplinary thinking are required to prepare future leaders to solve problems not yet known to be problems. Using a case study of a postgraduate climate change programme, this study illustrates the challenges addressed and resulting rewards when reforming the curriculum. Two theoretical curriculum models informed the re-imagination of the programme: objectives-based and action research following the process inquiry model. The reformation was undertaken by the programme teachers as researchers of their practice. To future-proof graduates, this study discusses how curricular intentions are aligned with the institution’s capacity for action towards change. Avoiding a business-as-usual scenario when faced with complex, politicized and global issues such as climate change requires both programme and course curricula continuous evaluation and revision. Alignment with internal (university and teacher-level) goals and external directives is required.     

The politics of environmental education: a case‐study

ABSTRACT

The ‘Environment and School Initiatives’ (ENSI) project is an OECD curriculum development project based on a ‘process model’. Eleven OECD countries, excluding the UK, participated in Phase 1 (1986‐8). The author carried out a comparative analysis of case‐studies of this phase, then sought to gain government support for the participation of UK schools in the second phase of ENSI. This article tells the story of his efforts and the responses they met with. The narrative describes and analyses the complex roles and positions taken by government departments, charitable foundations and multinational companies. The negative outcome for the future of the project in England and Wales indicated that the British government were more interested in the construction of politically symbolic acts which publicly signify concern for the environment than with the promotion of effective and educationally worthwhile pedagogies for environmental education.     

Curriculum development in medical education: From acronyms to dynamism

Medical education is a rapidly expanding discipline with its practitioners drawn from a mix of backgrounds. Among them there is an increased understanding of the centrality of the curriculum process in the translation of educational ideas in practice. There are four main trends that underlie this increased understanding: a widened conception of the major elements of curriculum and their interactivity; a more conceptual and global view of curriculum, the incorporation of ideas from the educational literature and the need for a dynamic overarching model of curriculum. The latter will provide a framework for the ongoing curriculum challenges in the field.     

Global–local dynamics of curriculum policy development: a case-study from Singapore

Non-government education is often a highly emotive and frequently irrational area of educational debate, especially when it centres on the degree of government funding and support. Frequently people take fortified positions, being either for or against it, often on political grounds and often without taking into account the cultural contexts and complexities involved. The purpose of this article is to look beyond these confines. It is based on a research project focusing on ‘whole’ curriculum policy at the individual school level in non-government schools in a variety of English-speaking countries in the developed world. The article is in three parts. The first part outlines the conceptual framework employed to guide our research project on curriculum policy. The second part presents a case-study of Chinese High School (CHS) in Singapore. This is an exemplar of the type of case-study of curriculum policy in non-government schools being undertaken as part of our research. Also, it is an interesting case in its own right; while the school has developed a global orientation to its curriculum policy and has incorporated ‘the global’ into ‘the local’ extremely rapidly, this curriculum transition has not been without its tensions and costs. The third part of the article offers a discussion of the ‘bigger picture’ implications of the findings.     

An evaluation of characteristics of environmental education practice in New Zealand schools

This paper reports on a national evaluation project that investigated characteristics of environmental education (EE) practice in New Zealand schools in 2002–2003. The research included a review of New Zealand and international environmental education literature, a survey of nearly 200 New Zealand schools and case studies of environmental education practice in eight schools. In this paper we describe and discuss key features of environmental education practice in New Zealand schools at the time of the research. We consider the rewards and challenges for teachers, students, schools and the wider school community arising from the schools’ implementation of this non‐compulsory curriculum subject. We conclude by considering what the findings told us about current EE practice and how these findings might inform a greater emphasis towards environmental education/education for sustainability in New Zealand schools at a time of national curriculum policy change.     

School curriculum in South Africa in the Covid-19 context: An opportunity for education for relevance

The pandemic nature of the Covid-19 virus and the infectious potential that this virus has for the global population demands a radical response. This article focuses on school education within the context of Covid-19 and asks a fundamental curriculum question around what knowledge is most worthwhile for school education in response to this disease. Schools within South Africa have been closed for an extended period and, within the guidelines for dealing with this infectious disease, social distancing has become a key component in determining how and when schools should reopen. This uncertainty has led to speculations, suggestions, proposals and tentative plans for a school recovery plan to save the integrity of the academic year. The article reviews some of the suggestions, proposals, and plans, which illuminate a technical concern of curriculum coverage rather than a curriculum concern of what learning should be pursued post the lockdown period. It also argues that, going forward, a review of the purpose of school is needed. If learning is the bedrock for determining a school curriculum, it should of necessity be relevant and responsive to the issues and challenges of the country within a global world.

     

Sport for all in postcolony: Is there a place for indigenous games in physical education curriculum and research in Africa

Abstract

The sport-for-all movement currently evident in many countries of the world is often touted as a self-evidently desirable means of achieving physical fitness on a global scale. But is sport truly a veritable route to collective wellbeing or some fantastic aggrandisement of a Western canon? This article challenges the cherished myth that sport is essentially meant for all regardless of context. The discursive background of sport for all was viewed through the lens of political economic relations and the dominant discourse of recreation and leisure. To be sure, sport for all has the ring of commonsense viewed from the North, yet it has a different resonance when examined from the South: it is a big, staggering plot to repress and diminish the cultural significance of the indigenous games of Third World people. This article takes stock of the lessons from the Dar es Salaam Sport for All project and stresses the need for African countries to resist any homogenising sport discourses premised against the reclamation of discursively constituted local games and indigenous physical education pedagogy. It argues that precolonial African games need not be uprooted from the physical education curriculum for colonial sports to roost, as these games have locus standi where Western sports stand. It suggests the need for deconstructive discourses that are conducive to the renovation and institution of indigenous African games as a step towards maintaining cultural distinctiveness and deconstructing totalising images of physical education curriculum content.     

Gaining a Global Criminal Justice Perspective: A Computer-Supported Collaboration Between Students in Sweden and the United States

This paper explores how Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) can globalize a criminal justice curriculum. It draws on a project where criminology students in Sweden and the United States collaborated in an online environment. We describe the design of the project and use student reflections to identify successes and challenges. The results show that for a CSCL to be successful, instructors need to be intentional about academic, psychological, and interpersonal aspects of the collaboration, as they are all interrelated. The students experienced challenges, for example, related to the workload. However, in most cases, the perceived benefits outweighed the challenges. The students reported an improved understanding of criminology theory and enhanced critical thinking skills. We argue that CSCL can improve the affordability and accessibility of global learning. Without having to travel, the students entered a virtual space where they could learn together with students and faculty from another country.     

印刷工程专业产出导向的产教融合教学改革与实践

国家实施深化产教融合战略性举措及高等教育新工科建设要求,使得高等工程教育面临着新的机遇和挑战.初步探讨了如何在印刷工程专业中践行产出导向、产教融合的理念,提高人才培养质量;并从专业、课程、师资、资源共享及共建等方面阐释了一些有益的改革与探索.项目的实践有效推动了专业建设与产业转型升级相适应,有助于培养适应新经济要求、符...     

New challenges for higher education: global and Asia-Pacific perspectives

With rapid socio-economic changes, twenty-first century higher education is facing major challenges to its governance systems, curriculum, mission focus, external relations, research, and financing. A theoretical framework to analyze these post-massification challenges is suggested, with a focus on the Asia-Pacific region as well as global issues. Five main topic areas provide the basis for the theoretical framework: massification, privatization, accountability and governance, internationalization, and ranking and world-class universities. Some discussion of the possible effects of the financial crisis that commenced in 2008 is provided.     

中外合作办学跨文化教学运行实践研究--以海南热带海洋学院中奥合办旅游管理本科项目为例

海南热带海洋学院与奥地利克雷姆斯国际管理中心应用技术大学合作举办的旅游管理专业本科教育项目作为学校首个中外合作办学项目,对于引进奥方先进的教学经验和教育资源具有重要意义。项目摸着石头过河,面临着跨文化教学管理的各项挑战。分析了项目在课程体系建设、课程考核与成绩评定制度、教学质量监控以及课堂文化等具体教学运行环节方面的差异与融合、分立与衔接,进一步总结了项目的跨文化教学运行经验,为中外合作办学跨文化教学管理提供了参考。     

CDIO高等工程教育模式下构建高校公共体育课程质量评价探研

高校公共体育课程为了适应新的人才培养计划对专业人才素质的要求,必须不断地进行革新。CDIO高等工程教育模式是一种新型的教育模式,同样适用于高校体育课程。对于已经进行了CDIO工程教育改革的高校而言,学校公共体育课程质量的评价要以校本课程为基础,注重课程效果质量,突出素质教育为指导思想,建立课程质量评价指标,并组织与实施评价。研究的主要手段和目的是通过构建评价体系达到科学评价高校公共课程质量。     

Common European framework of reference for languages (CEFR): insights into global policy borrowing in Malaysian higher education

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) has emerged as a global policy in language education which has been ‘borrowed’ by nations across the world. This paper presents a critical analysis of Malaysia’s borrowing of the CEFR as part of English language curriculum reform with particular reference to policy motivation and implementation processes as outlined in the English Language Education Roadmap for Malaysia (2015–2025). The analysis draws on Phillips and Ochs’s (2003, “Processes of Policy Borrowing in Education: Some Explanatory and Analytical Devices.” Comparative Education 39 (4): 451–461.) framework for examining educational policy borrowing to highlight challenges as well as prospects of the implementation of the global policy in higher education in Malaysia.