Globalized curriculum or global approach to curriculum reform in mathematics education

The mathematics education community has shown considerable awareness of the international status of their discipline. While internationalization of the discipline is not a new phenomenon, globalization is a relatively recent term in educational discourse. This paper presents a theoretical model towards the study of globalization and internationalization in mathematics education based on previous publication by the authors. Secondly, it identifies some key issues that have been discussed in the literature and that may require further discussion and research in the field. In particular it discusses the issue of similarity of mathematics education curricula around the world. The concept of a global curriculum is rejected in favor for more internationalized approach to curriculum reform based on collaboration between mathematics educators.     

University class size: Is smaller better?

This study investigates the relationship between class size and achievement at the college level. Recent meta-analyses have found a strong relationship between class size and student achievement, but few of the studies examined class size larger than 40 or university-age populations. This analysis examines a university's testing-center data-archives representing 305 sections from 24 different courses. Section sizes ranged from 13 to 1,006. A total of 16,230 test scores were analyzed. The results of this investigation reveal that at the college level, class size may be less important an influence on student achievement than some educators have thought.     

The Language of the Geography Text‐book: an historical appraisal

Graphic elicitation, i.e. asking participants to draw, is an interview technique used to focus the interviewee on the given topic or gain extra meaning not covered verbally as part of the interview. This study analyses two interview contexts which included visual elicitation. It describes a successful example in which the researcher maintained control over the mode of the planned research task (diagram) as well as another example in which slippage occurred between the mode of the planned research task (drawing) and the resulting artefact (diagram). Through this analysis, strategies for maintaining researcher control over the mode of elicitation are identified, increasing our understanding about the theory and practice of both drawings and diagrams as two different modes of visual elicitation. The paper concludes that the required control does not necessarily comprise an increase in task structure (directing participants as to how to draw). Moreover, the subject and purpose of the task are equally important. Successful researcher control then comprises a careful balance between all the three aspects of purpose, structure and subject.     

Towards safe and comfortable high-speed transportation infrastructure

In the past decades, we have witnessed the rapid development of high-speed transportation infra-structure, such as high-speed railways, urban subways, expressways, and airfields worldwide. As a major effort in transportation infrastructure development, China plans to