On Being Specific

Dr. Elsmere urges that student teachers be given more specific suggestions and criticism and that they be required to meet more specific requirements.     

The boundaries of adult education for active citizenship fiinstitutional and community contexts

In common with many other countries, the 1980s and early 1990s in New Zealand were years of considerable upheaval. The welfare state along with many democratic institutions was under attack from the forces of multinational capital. This article reports some findings from a largescale study investigating the impact of these changes on the provision of education and training opportunities for adults as well as possible effects of some of these programmes on wider policies and practices. It is hoped that the study will contribute to greater understanding of the complex relationships between the ‘curriculum’ of adult learning and education and wider social, economic and political forces. This article focuses exclusively on adult education programmes for active citizenship, i.e. programmes explicitly intended to promote, inform, analyse, critique, challenge, or raise public consciousness about public policies and issues. It investigates the nature and extent of the contributions of educational institutions and voluntary organizations to adult and community education for active citizenship. The findings suggest that from one perspective adult education for active citizenship was alive and well in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The period saw an increase in the number of social movements and ‘non-educational’ voluntary organizations and groups engaged in adult education for active citizenship. Much of this drew on progressive or radical democratic traditions. From another perspective the position was by no means as positive. Educational institutions varied widely in their commitment to adult education for active citizenship. Most institutions, drawing on conservative and pragmatic traditions, demonstrated little commitment, while those that were involved drew on liberal traditions. These traditions, grounded in discourses that de-politicized education, reinforced the boundaries between adult education and political action and thus served to legitimate the neo-liberal ideologies.     

Innovation in Technology-Based Flexible Learning: Dentaltec,a case study

The DentalTec project at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) was funded by a BT University Development Award between 1998 and 2000. The project was intended to lever change in technology and pedagogy in the teaching of Dental Technology, using emerging video and web approaches. The methods established by the project are still in use and are subject to ongoing development work--to that extent the project was a success, and those successes are discussed. However, key stakeholders to the project (educational development staff and subject leaders) concluded that the project had only limited impact where more had been expected. Drawing upon the Latchem and Hanna and the Collis and Moonen articles in this edition, this article reflects on the reasons for the successes and limitations of the DentalTec project.     

Identifying and developing creative giftedness

To a large extent, creativity is a decision. Children as well as adults are creative, not by virtue of an innate ability, but by virtue of a set of decisions. In essence, they decide for creativity, rather than an innate set of abilities deciding whether they are creative. Thus, creative giftedness is not a fixed trait, but a decision‐making skill that can be developed. In this article, I present ten decisions people can make to decide for creativity. Included are teaching examples of these decisions as well as teaching activities to facilitate students' learning how to make these decisions.     

Examining the rationale for gifted education

The rationales underlying the enrichment and acceleration approaches to programming for the gifted are analyzed and compared. The focus is on how each approach views questions concerning who are the gifted and how they are best educated. Acceleration emphasizes development of specific cognitive abilities while enrichment is aimed at helping students with certain personality characteristics to organize their abilities into constructive and creative products. The Revolving Door Identification Model debate aired in an earlier issue of this journal is used to illustrate the differences that exist between proponents of enrichment and acceleration programming models.