Curriailum Animation

Twenty-five teachers with reputations for artistry in curriculum planning were interviewed about their “curriculum animation” plans or how they ensured their curriculum was brought to life. Their statements indicated that much of their planning is informal and intuitive, and that the criteria they use for their curriculum includes: (1) it is academically sound; (2) it is an enjoyable experience; (3) it fits well with a multitude of characteristics of their particular students; (4) it has variety, active participation, and a flow of energy; and (5) it is consistent with a personalized vision of education that goes far beyond the classroom. “Until a curriculum comes to life in the classroom, it remains only a plan and cannot affect what students learn” (Walker 1990, 343).     

Peer production and collective intelligence as the basis for the public digital university*

This paper reviews two main historical approaches to creativity: the Romanticist approach, based on the culture of the irrational, and the Enlightenment approach, based on the culture of the objective. It defends a paradigm of creativity as a sum of rich semiotic systems that form the basis of distributed knowledge and learning, reviews historical ideas of the university, and identifies two conflicting mainstream models in regards to understanding of the university as a public good: the ‘Public’ University circa 1960–1980, and the ‘post-historical’ university. Based on practical experiences, and on previous works by Peters and Jandri?, it develops the new model of ‘the creative university as digital public university’, and argues that it provides a useful philosophical goal for directing present and future practices of the contemporary university.     

Costing part‐time provision

This article examines the varied approaches which have been adopted to the costing of part‐time higher education, and considers the consequences of these alternative models both for the providers themselves and for national policy. Though the analysis concentrates on face‐to‐face provision in universities, polytechnics and colleges, a series of comparisons are made with the Open University. It is hoped that it will assist in understanding the likely impact of proposed changes in funding where such changes encounter established arrangements. This is especially so in the PCFC sector where a new methodology is proposed for 1990‐91. The research reported here forms part of a larger study supported by the CNAA and Middlesex Polytechnic and shortly to be published under the title: Other Routes. The authors are both members of the Centre for Community Studies at Middlesex Polytechnic.     

Education policy and the challenge of living philosophy

Talk of the rise of a global war for talent and emergence of a new global meritocracy has spread from the literature on human resource management to shape nation‐state discourse on managed migration and immigration reform. This article examines the implications that the global war for talent have for education policy. Given that this talent war is a product of neoliberalism, it raises many of the same concerns for educators as neoliberalism in general: the embrace and promotion of social, economic and educational inequality; and a narrow, market‐based conception of education, skill and talent. This article argues, however, that the global war for talent represents a new phase in neoliberalism, as it seeks to liberalise the global movement not just of capital and commodities, but of high skill labour as well. In this, it threatens to undercut some of the founding assumptions and goals that have shaped national education policy in OECD countries throughout the post‐World War II period, and raises serious concerns for how we are to think about and pursue equality, inclusion and fairness in and through education in the future.     

An effective mathematics and science curriculum option for secondary gifted education

Project Ga‐GEMS (Georgia's Project for Gifted Education in Math and Science) viewed the effect that placement in an integrated, hands‐on mathematics and science curriculum had on the achievement of academically talented high school students. For a two‐year period of time, students gifted in the areas of mathematics and science participated in a curriculum which incorporated higher‐level thinking skills and more real life laboratory experiences into mutually reinforcing mathematics and science lessons. After the conclusion of the two‐year program, Ga‐GEMS participants and a control group were given the mathematics and science sections of the ACT as they exited the tenth grade. The Ga‐GEMS students scored significantly higher on the Science Math Total, Pre‐Algebra/Elementary Algebra, Intermediate Algebra/Coordinate Geometry and Plane Geometry/Trigonometry sections of the ACT. To determine if the Ga‐GEMS students retained their higher scores throughout high school the SAT scores of both groups were compared as the students exited high school. Significant differences in the areas of total score and mathematics were noted. This study lends support for the use of a differentiated curriculum for educating gifted students in science and mathematics.