Simulations: Using experiential learning to add relevancy and meaning to introductory courses

Over the past two years the authors have provided experiential learning in the form of a simulation exercise to help 240 college students relate personally to the foundations of education. Introductory courses, with a preponderance of facts and breadth of content, can easily overwhelm students. The simulation not only energized the students but also personalized an in-depth understanding of educational issues. This theoretical knowledge was applied practically, a link which may often be missing in many introductory courses.Kathleen K. Montgomery holds a D. Ed. from The Pennsylvania State University. She is Assistant Professor of Education at Elmira College, where she teaches Introduction to Education, Instructional Strategies, and Curriculum and Instruction for Elementary Education. Professor Montgomery's research interests include the design of experiential learning and assessment methods used to evaluate such learning. She is currently working on a book about authentic assessment methods useful for elementary teachers. Susan C. Brown holds an Ed.D. from the University of Central Florida. She is the Assistant Director/Assistant Professor of Education at Elmira College, where she teaches Introduction to Education, Instructional Strategies, and Multicultural Education. Professor Brown has recently published articles on multicultural education for perservice teachers in theJournal of Curriculum and Supervision andCurriculum, a British Journal of educators. She is on the Editorial Board of the Educational Forum. Cathleen M. Deery holds the M.S. degree for Syracuse University. She is lecturer at Elmira College, where she teaches Introduction to Education, Educational Psychology, and Inclusionary Education. Professor Deery has designed numerous experiential learning components for her classes, and she is currently working on a book with Kathleen Montgomery about authentic assessment methods.     

The Residential School: a valid choice

Suzzane Saunders is Head of Education at Penhurst School for children with physical disabilites and severe or profound learning difficulties, run by NCH Action for Children. Although she believes that inclusive education is a goal which should be aimed for, she argues that, currently for some children in some circumstances, a residential school represents a positive option.     

秋瑾的教育观探微

秋瑾是我国近代史上杰出的资产阶级女革命家，也是一位颇有见地的教育家。她认为，教育必须以爱国主义为宗旨，必须为革命事业服务，教育是妇女解放的重要条件。尽管其教育观也有缺陷和不足，但她的教育观中的许多闪光点。对当代教育界仍有借鉴意义。     

The Process Of Developing a New Curriculum for Lower Secondary Education in Guatemala

The intention of this article is to present the way in which a proposal was put forward for a national basic curriculum for the lower level of secondary education in Guatemala, within a general curricular reform of the education system. In this process, the International Bureau of Education and UNESCO’s national office in the country provided technical advice. The article examines the socio-cultural and educational context, some conceptual foundations for the curricular reform, the construction of the curriculum for lower secondary education, some features of the proposed curriculum and the outlook for the future. The process of curriculum construction included a diagnosis, drawing up a strategy for reforming the first cycle of secondary education and preparation of the proposed curriculum. Likewise, the authors present the steps that must be taken in order for the national basic curriculum to be adopted, subject, amongst other factors, to the availability of funding. Original language: Spanish Linda Asturias de Barrios (Guatemala) Doctorate in Anthropology from the University at Albany, State University of New York. Postgraduate studies in Public Policies and Intercultural Affairs at the Universidad del Valle, Guatemala. She has taught at secondary school and university level. As a researcher, she has published books and articles on ethnology, development and education in Guatemala and Central America. At the Ministry of Education she has worked as Co-ordinator of the National and International Co-operation Unit (1997–1999), Co-ordinator of the Reform of Secondary Education (2004–2006) and Co-ordinator of the Reform of Lower Secondary Education (2007). E-mail: lindaasturias@yahoo.com Verónica Mérida Arellano (Guatemala) Teacher of secondary school language and literature and graduate in Literature and Philosophy at Rafael Landívar University. She completed a master’s degree in education and curriculum at the University del Valle, Guatemala. She has been a university lecturer. She has published books and articles on the teaching of Maya as a mother tongue and Spanish as a second language. She has worked as curriculum specialist at the Ministry of Education (1985–1991) and as Co-ordinator of Teacher-Training Programmes at Rafael Landívar University. From 2005 to 2007 she acted as Curriculum Consultant for Lower Secondary Education at the Ministry of Education. E-mail: vmeridaguate@yahoo.com.mx     

The local curriculum in Mozambique: the Santa Rita Community School in Xinavane

In 1983, Mozambique started reviewing the education system that it had inherited from the Portuguese colonial administration. One of the innovations introduced into basic education is the time allocated to the local curriculum (LC) within the national curriculum (NC). The LC enables the communities, including the poorest and those furthest removed from the school environment, to identify themselves with the importance of schooling and allow children to find meaning in what they learn with respect to their life in their community. The good practice described below has been introduced in a community school, where it has successfully brought together the LC and NC to become an individual and collective asset for the community in which it has been implemented. It is a successful example worth studying in detail.

Adult students,adult education,and the Ed.D.: An alternative residency experience

The increase of part-time adult students in Ed.D. programs calls into question the effectiveness and feasibility of the traditional, full-time residency. Adult education concepts provide a basis for designing an alternative residency which offers a quality academic and socialization experience. The Syracuse University alternative residency for the Ed.D. in Adult Education provides a model which can be adapted to other institutions and programs.Prior to joining the SU faculty, she had extensive experience as a postsecondary continuing education administrator. For almost three years she has been the Alternative Residency advisor for the Program's Ed.D. students.     

Territory,indigenous education and cultural maintenance: The case of the Arakmbut of South-Eastern Peru

Has carried out field work at different periods over the last fifteen years with the Harakmbut of South-eastern Peru. Since 1984 she has worked with the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs in Copenhagen and Oxford, in particular with indigenous self-development projects in Latin America. In 1994 she completed a Ph.D. at the University of London on intercultural and bilingual education, and since then has been working with the Reading (UK)-based non-governmental organization, Education for Development.     

Productive pedagogies and the challenge of inclusion

Julie Allan is Professor of Education at the Institute of Education, University of Stirling, where she also directs the Participation, Inclusion and Equity Research Network. In this article, she explores the challenges involved in achieving an inclusive education system. Her argument draws on recommendations from two separate studies, undertaken in Queensland, Australia and Scotland, which are attempting to shape inclusion policy and practice. The Queensland School Reform Longitudinal Study identified a set of productive pedagogies in which issues of social justice, equity and inclusion are foregrounded. The Scottish Parliamentary Inquiry into special needs, to which Professor Allan was adviser, recommended a number of changes aimed at establishing an inclusive education system for all pupils. Comparisons of the two sets of recommendations, which formed the basis of a series of workshops with teachers, school leaders and administrators within Education Queensland, have prompted two major questions which are addressed in this paper: what gets in the way of inclusive practice and what will it take to be inclusive? Julie Allan's responses to these questions take account of the ways in which we think about ‘special education’ teacher training and professional development; and educational policies and practices. She represents a fascinating set of ‘double‐edged responsibilities’ that will challenge practitioners, policy makers and teacher educators to refocus and reframe their thinking about special educational needs and inclusion.     

Madame Li Li: Communist revolutionary,adult educator,lifelong learner

Prior to 1949 the Chinese Communist Party orchestrated innovative and participatory forms of adult education. This article concerns Madame Li Li, a leading Chinese Communist woman adult educator. Western delegates at the International Council for Adult Education 1984 Shanghai symposium on adult education were fascinated by Madame Li Li because, amongst other things, she had begun her career in adult education as a 14-year-old propagandist in the Communist New 4th Army. Today, China is trying to become the biggest learning society in the world. With this as a backdrop, the purpose of this study was to chronicle the life of Li Li and reflect on what it means for twenty-first century Chinese adult education and learning. After being forced from her Huai'an (Jiangsu) home at age 14, she worked underground for the Communist Party. After 1949 she turned early experience in surveillance and propaganda into a career as an adult educator. She has misgivings about her work in the Party Discipline department and, being from a privileged family and a high official, suffered harsh treatment during the Cultural Revolution. After the Cultural Revolution she presided over a massive adult education enterprise in Shanghai and was an organiser of the 1984 Shanghai symposium on adult education. Today she worries about corruption, instability and lack of a moral compass in China. The authors reflect on what her life means for adult education and lifelong learning in twenty-first century China.     

Access to higher education: an exploration of realities and possibilities

In this article the author describes and evaluates the development of a learning support service for dyslexic students at the Chichester Institute of Higher Education. She refers to both student and staff experience of the service in order to appraise its success and in so doing she raises significant issues relating to the creation of an inclusive educational experience for all students in higher education.     

LMS: A Rising Sense of Alarm

Mavis Willey is head of an outer London primary school which includes a number of pupils with learning difficultles and she is committed to a whole school approach to their education. She views with mounting dismay the threats to the whole school policy and the viability of schools like hers which local management of schools and other provisions of the Education Reform Act present.     

Making leadership personal and universal

Suzanne W. Morse is currently director of programs at the Kettering Foundation. Prior to this position, she spent 10 years as an administrator in higher education. Her most recent book is RenewingCivic Capacity. She is a member of the Leadership Council of the Jepson School of Leadership at The University of Richmond, the editor of Public Leadership Education series and active in a number of other civic leadership ventures.     

开放教育试点专业《英语》教材评析

开放教育试点计算机本科专业使用的新英语教材，在编写原则、内容编排、练习形式及课文选材等方面体现出来了外语教学中素质教育的特色，但教材在起点水平、词汇、体裁方面存在着不足，建议作进一步改进。     

Educating children with Down's syndrome in the United Arab Emirates

It is always instructive to hear about the experiences of those seeking to promote inclusion in a range of cultures and countries around the world. In this article Dr Gaad, Assistant Professor in the Department of Special Education at the University of the United Arab Emirates, reports on her Government-funded research into the education of children with Down's syndrome in her country. As an Arabic speaker, Dr Gaad was able to gather the views of parents, professionals and policy makers in some depth. As an educator, she brought a critical level of analysis to the lessons she observed.
In the following pages, Dr Gaad reflects on the attitudes, values and beliefs that impact upon the education of children with Down's syndrome in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). She discusses the educational services that are currently provided for these children and gives focused consideration to the issue of inclusion. The article closes with Dr Gaad's recommendations for future practice.     

Inclusive education: pushing the boundaries

This special issue is introduced. The issue draws together a selection of articles uniting theoretical and field research dealing with the notion of inclusive education and the challenges encountered in the policy-making and implementation processes. These articles represent diverse, multifaceted theoretical, disciplinary and methodological approaches to inclusion. Throughout the issue, inclusion is seen as a guiding principle, helping to accomplish quality Education for All (EFA)—education systems that benefit from diversity, aiming to build a more just, democratic society. This special issue is devoted to the theme of the 48th International Conference of Education, “Inclusive Education: The Way of the Future” (Geneva, 25–28 November, 2008).

教育何以关涉权力

“权力”不仅是政治学研究的“圣杯”,也是影响人类社会生活诸多领域的要素.传统教育学偏爱“人的教育”的理想阐扬,但“人”从来都是社会关系中具体的存在.教育是培养人的事业,权力因素在其中发挥着重要的作用,从目的到手段、从合法性知识的界定到制度化教育系统的掌控,无不体现着权力的意志.只有理解了教育行动中权力的机制,才能够真正理解教育并发现教育实践中诸多问题的症结所在.     

The synergy of minority student persistence and faculty renewal

In response to increased student assessment and accountability concerns, colleges and universities have been called on to increase their efforts to improve the retention rates of an increasingly diverse student body. This article outlines a synergistic strategy for promoting minority student persistence through faculty renewal efforts that encourage faculty to question their cultural beliefs and academic values concerning the teaching and learning enterprise.Dr. Kay F. Norman is currently with Delaware State University where she is Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching. She also teaches graduate courses in Educational Assessment and Special Education Administration and Supervision. She holds an Ed.D. in Higher Education Administration with emphasis in Student Services from Texas Southern University. Her research interests are in student retention, assessment, and effective teaching. James Norman, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Education at Delaware State University's School of Education. He is a graduate of Ohio State University. Dr. Norman's research interest include special education monitoring and compliance issues, and behavioral management systems.     

A roadmap for action

This text gives a structured overview of some of the courses for action that the participants in the UNESCO IBE project worked out together as a group over several months. We went beyond identifying the barriers and difficulties together with the good practices being developed in the several countries and tried to define a broad outline for the type of school we wanted to build. We thus needed to sketch out a roadmap for action that would guide us in our work and overcome the feeling of helplessness that many of us shared. It is quite normal when writing about education to begin by saying “we must” or “we ought to”, without making it clear on whom those positive changes in education, or rather, in schools in different countries and contexts, depended in order for us to work towards accomplishing the goals of Education for All (EFA). Yet together we can, at different levels of power and responsibility, build a school for all that brings together quality and equity. This roadmap is a tool to guide our action, which in turn is itself enriched by our action, that of systematizing and analysing the progress made and the difficulties encountered.

Towards an inclusive school culture — but what happened to Elton's ‘affective curriculum’?

The inclusion debate is no longer concerned merely with the extent to which mainstream schools are able to accommodate all children regardless of need but increasingly focuses on institutional improvement in understanding the range of their needs. In spite of our better understanding of how children learn and of how their emotional and social realities can be used as a source of learning that is relevant to the needs of all, 'difficult' children continue to be seen by many as impeding their teachers' pedagogical effectiveness and as damaging the educational chances of others. In this article, Gerda Hanko, an education consultant and staff development tutor who has substantial experience in teaching and teacher training, offers an overview of the development of practical approaches to professional development which, by deepening teachers' insight into emotional and social factors in children's learning, have been shown to supersede the need to exclude the disaffected — as already suggested in the Elton Report. Gerda Hanko's own publications, initially developed under the auspices of a London Institute of Education associateship when she was Head of Education at a teacher training institution, promote collaborative problem-solving approaches among staff — ideas that she takes forward in this paper.     

Cultural studies of science education

In response to Stetsenko’s [2008, Cultural Studies of Science Education, 3] call for a more unified approach in sociocultural perspectives, this paper traces the origins of the use of sociocultural ideas in New Zealand from the 1970s to the present. Of those New Zealanders working from a sociocultural perspective who responded to our query most had encountered these ideas while overseas. More recently activity theory has been of interest and used in reports of work in early childhood, workplace change in the apple industry, and in-service teacher education. In all these projects the use of activity theory has been useful for understanding how the elements of a system can transform the activity. We end by agreeing with Stetsenko that there needs to be a more concerted approach by those working from a sociocultural perspective to recognise the contribution of others in the field.