Making policy with ‘good ideas’: policy networks and the ‘intellectuals’ of New Labour

The educational reforms being enacted in Singapore can be considered exceptional in that they are being undertaken within a highly effective system. We explore these reforms using Brown and Lauder's ideal-typical analysis of ‘neo-Fordist’ and ‘post-Fordist’ models of national economic development. Singapore's reforms have been extensive, ranging from changes to early childhood education through to tertiary education. We examine the nature of state-market relations in education within the context of Singapore's ‘soft authoritarian’ political culture and assess the chances of success of the reforms.     

On reforming practice in mathematics education

Based on principles of constructivism, an analysis is made of how practice in mathematical education might be reformed towards a professional practice. In addition to the widespread recommendations that mathematical teaching be based on interactive communication and that mathematical learning be active, we argue that conventional school mathematics be replaced by a constructivist school mathematics. A constructivist school mathematics is based on children's use of their schemes of action and operation in learning situations, and whatever accommodation the children make in these schemes as they use them. Through examples of our learning of the numerical schemes of five year old children we illustrate what we mean by a constructivist school mathematics. In our examples, we characterize the schemes of action and operation that we attribute to children as our interpretations of the children's activities. For this reason, we define a constructivist school mathematics to be the results of the observer's experiential abstractions in the context of interacting with children mathematically. A professional teacher is cast as one with the intellectual autonomy and power to produce a constructivist school mathematics, including the involved situations of learning and interactive mathematical communication.     

DNA microarray wet lab simulation brings genomics into the high school curriculum

We have developed a wet lab DNA microarray simulation as part of a complete DNA microarray module for high school students. The wet lab simulation has been field tested with high school students in Illinois and Maryland as well as in workshops with high school teachers from across the nation. Instead of using DNA, our simulation is based on pH indicators, which offer many ideal teaching characteristics. The simulation requires no specialized equipment, is very inexpensive, is very reliable, and takes very little preparation time. Student and teacher assessment data indicate the simulation is popular with both groups, and students show significant learning gains. We include many resources with this publication, including all prelab introductory materials (e.g., a paper microarray activity), the student handouts, teachers notes, and pre- and postassessment tools. We did not test the simulation on other student populations, but based on teacher feedback, the simulation also may fit well in community college and in introductory and nonmajors' college biology curricula.     

Data gathering and analysis for needs assessment: A case study

Various data‐gathering and analysis methods available in our profession's literature, current and past, provide rich options for conducting quality needs assessments. These methods assisted with a thorough needs assessment for a billable hours issue in the parts and service department of a large, power tool and equipment retailer based in the Midwestern United States.