The New Technologies and Borderless Higher Education: the Quality Imperative

The new information technologies are contributing powerfully to the internationalization of higher education. The development of quality assurance mechanisms for course offerings and full degree programmes delivered internationally is lagging. Only the United States, Australia, and Hong Kong have taken steps to regulate the quality of imported or exported higher education offerings. To fill the gap, a non‐governmental international organization, the Global Alliance for Transnational Education (GATE) was created in 1995. This organization will certify the quality of given international higher education programmes, including those delivered, to a greater or lesser extent, by electronic means, that meet its standards as laid down in its Principles for Transnational Education. These are summarized in the article.     

Nonverbal behavior in the classroom

Research is reviewed on nonverbal behavior, in particular that related to the glance, facial expression, bodily movements, and personal space. Some implications for communication between teacher and students are considered and some suggestions are presented to teachers for eliminating nonverbal cues by which they may unwittingly communicate favoritism or rejection to students.     

Becoming a strategic reader

An important aspect of learning to read is understanding how to use strategies to aid comprehension. Many actions such as skimming, using context to discern unfamiliar words, and taking notes to aid remembering can promote reading comprehension and learning. In this paper we examine aspects of knowledge and motivation that are critical to becoming a strategic reader. We emphasize that agents are strategic, not actions removed from contexts, and that self-guided learning depends on the intentions, perceptions, and attributions of learners. Learning to read strategically is related to children's cognitive development as well as to the social contexts of instruction. Some suggestions are offered for classroom instruction that can promote children's awareness and use of strategic reading.     

International relocation: The future of spouse relocation assistance

We wish to gratefully acknowledge Dolores Kirby, Pat Moyer, Patricia Squire, and Beverly Wintersheid for so generously sharing their insights and extensive experiences as expatriate spouses.     

Help for a fledgling field: A coalition of infant/toddler educators

Marjorie Brickley is an Early Childhood Instructor at York College in Queens, NY. Aimee Gelnaw is an Educational Coordinator for the Urban Prekindergarten Program/Babyland in Newark, NJ. Both are members of CITE     

The quality agenda: governance and regulation of preschool teachers’ work

The increased regulation of teachers’ work is a global phenomenon across education sectors. In Australia the governance of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) embeds international priorities for quality improvement in educational programmes. The implementation of a National Quality Framework (NQF) for the assessment of ECEC services has mobilised the production of a suite of regulatory texts. The regulation of teachers’ work is legitimised through the discourse of quality embedded in policy guidelines. Drawing on interview data from preschool teachers, this paper employs institutional ethnography (IE) to investigate teachers’ accounts of producing a Quality Improvement Plan. As teachers operationalise the expectations of quality assurance in the NQF, their work is oriented to gathering evidence of an approved quality of practice. The findings indicate a shift in professional focus to increased documentation of ‘quality of practice’, goal setting and evidence of the collaborative construction of Quality Improvement Plans.