The need for change in the education system is obvious and overwhelming. But each stakeholder group has its own ideas about why the system is broken and how to fix it. Competing priorities, political inertia and diminishing budgets maintain the dysfunctional status quo. This essential text examines the underlying causes behind the key challenges…

Over the past twenty-five years, or so, considerable advances have been made in understanding how learning occurs in the brain, though much of this research is still to make its way into education. One contribution it should be making is to furnish the philosophical critique of past and current theory with supporting empirical evidence. For…

Purpose: While many approaches in the field of unlearning aim at describing, understanding or explaining the "what" and/or "how" of unlearning, this paper aims to focus on the "where-to" and the goal of unlearning. In many cases, unlearning starts off with a specific result or goal in mind. This paper suggests that…

Evaluation is defined by its central task of valuing--the process and product of judging the merit, worth, or significance of a policy or program. However, there are no clear-cut ways to consider values and render value judgments in evaluation practice. There remains contention in the evaluation field about whether and how to make value judgments.…

The Easy-Play Model offers a defined framework to organize games that promote an inclusive and enjoyable sport experience. The model can be implemented by participants playing sports in educational, recreational or social contexts with the goal of achieving an active lifestyle in an inclusive, cooperative and enjoyable environment. The Easy-Play…

The growth in the importance of school leadership has been accompanied by theory development, with new models emerging and established approaches being redefined and further developed. The purpose of this paper is to review current and recent writing on leadership models. The paper examines theoretical literature, to see how leadership is…

Language serves many functions for humans, but three of the most important are coordination, learning, and friendship. All of those functions were well served by the conversations from which this special issue emerged, a conference, "Grounding language in perception and (inter) action", held at Gordon College in June 2009. The conference brought…

The role of farming previously dedicated mainly to food production changed with an increasing recognition of the multifunctionality of agriculture and rural areas. It seems obvious to expect that farmers and rural actors adapt themselves to these new conditions, which are innovative and redefine their job. In many regions farmers can increase…

The work value system, its development, and its relationship with work experiences can be modeled as an adaptive control system [Ford, D. H., & Lerner, R. M. (1992). "Developmental systems theory: An integrative approach". Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications]. This study employed longitudinal data from 1000 participants (Youth Development Study;…

The concept of ideology is discussed. An evaluation design that is based on values and ideologies is advocated so that it can be applied to services in different categories and still produce valid comparisons. (Author/AL)

Synthesizes a conceptual framework (or linguistic-conceptual systems) for thinking about conceptual frameworks, discusses their potential for helping users develop competence in applying them to unstructured problem solving, and outlines instructional implications. The theory-practice gap arises partly from failure to conceptualize the nature of…

Dynamical systems theory can increase our understanding of the constantly evolving learning process. Current research using experimental and interpretive paradigms focuses on describing the attractors and constraints stabilizing the educational process. Dynamical systems theory focuses attention on critical junctures in the learning process as…