Improving The Quality of Education Through School-Based Management: Learning From International Experiences

School-based management is being increasingly advocated as a shortcut to more efficient management and quality improvement in education. Research, however, has been unable to prove conclusively such a linkage. Especially in developing countries, concerns remain about the possible detrimental impact of school-based management on school quality; equity among different schools in the same system; the motivation of and relationships between principals and teachers; and financial as well as administrative transparency. The present study defines school-based management and, in view of its implementation in different world regions, examines some of its advantages and disadvantages. In particular, the author explores the strategies which must accompany school-based management in order to ensure a positive impact on quality. These are found to include (1) guaranteeing that all schools have certain basic resources; (2) developing an effective school-support system; (3) providing schools with regular information on their performance and advice on how they might improve; and (4) emphasizing the motivational element in the management work of the school principal.     

T. rex,the Crater of Doom,and the Nature of Scientific Discovery

Working from the 1970s to the early 1990s, Walter Alvarez and his research teamsought the cause of the mass extinction that claimed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. The present paper discusses thatresearch in terms of eight puzzling observations, eight episodes of hypothetico-predictive reasoning, enumerative induction,and Jung's interrogative theory of scientific discovery. The Alvarez case history paints scientific discovery as a process in whichcausal questions are raised and answered through the creative use of analogical reasoning followed by an equally creative process ofhypothesis testing in which predicted and observed results are compared. According to this account, puzzling observations, causalhypotheses, and imagined tests drive investigations and the search for evidence. Two implications follow. The firstconcerns the education of new scientists and science education researchers and the need to more clearlydifferentiate hypotheses from predictions in the research process. The second concerns standard science classroom instruction that shouldmore frequently engage students in open inquiries that raise causal questions and encourage the generation of alternative causalhypotheses, which can then be explicitly tested in ahypothetico-predictive fashion.     

Visions for ICT, Ethics and the Practice of Teachers

The failure of educational computing is often attributed to deficiencies of practice: resisting teachers and lack of will, competence and sincerity on behalf of the teaching profession. But the complexity of school life and teachers work has been underestimated by the entrepreneurs of educational computing. Theoretically there is a need to approach this area from a different angle. We will suggest there is a need to reframe the issue of ICT in schools with educational policy and discourse with education, rather than with technology in mind. In order to reach that goal there is a need to inculcate technology as an ordinary part of teachers vocabulary about their own work and as a part of their professional ethos. Teachers need to examine the moral values inherent in their practices and use those values as bases for debate. Not taking up these issues and instead adopting defensive stances is dangerous to the profession. The danger is that defensiveness can be seen by others outside the school as rigidity and play into the hands of those who are impatient with teachers. It would serve teachers well if they had a more robust ability to communicate the nature of the difficulties they face and how they deal with them.     

Is Piaget's epistemic subject dead?

Niaz (1990) presents arguments in favor of the retention of Piaget's epistemic subject as a theoretical construct to guide research and practice in science education and psychology. The intent of this article is to point out the weaknesses of those arguments and to suggest that the weight of evidence argues against the existence of the logical thinker postulated by Piaget. Therefore, contrary to Niaz's conclusion that the acceptance of Piaget's epistemic subject will facilitate the development of cognitive theories with greater explanatory power, the conclusion is reached that Piaget's epistemic subject is dead and that continued acceptance of this aspect of Piagetian theory would be counterproductive.     

The acquisition of basic quantitative reasoning skills during adolescence: Learning or development?

Five items requiring use of proportional, probabilistic, and correlational reasoning were administered to students in grades 6, 8, 10, and 12. Proportions are taught in the school district in grades 7 and 8, probability in grade 10, and correlations are not taught. Based on the hypothesis that successful performance is due to classroom instruction, improvements on the proportions item were predicted between grades 6 and 10 and improvements on the probability items were predicted between grades 10 and 12. Actual gradewise improvements did not correspond well with predictions. Yet performance did correlate significantly with enrollment in classes such as chemistry, physics, and trigonometry. It is argued that successful qualitative reasoning arises as a consequence of the process of equilibration, and influences one's selection of course work. Specific instruction may initiate the equilibration process.     

On a theory of instruction: Why different forms of instruction result in similar knowledge

Why can instructional processes having widely different topographies—such as teaching through a demonstration (modeling), teaching through verbal explanation, and teaching by simply providing an occasion for the child's direct contingent experience—all result in the development of the same or similar knowledge? A recent series of experiments that examined the role of instruction in the intellectual development of young children provides evidence for the equivalence of different forms of instruction and leads to the postulation of a set of invariant processes of information exchange that underlies the surface characteristics of various forms of instruction.