Americans seem to agree that social studies education is important for citizens in a democracy, but they have disagreed vociferously about what constitutes the social studies, who should teach it, what methods are most effective, and if different students need different curriculum or instruction. This history of conflict is called the "social…

This article explores the shift in terminology that occurred in a 2-year Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC)-funded curriculum renewal project that set out to broadly explore current teaching and learning practice in Indigenous Australian studies (www.teaching4change.edu.au). While we started with the term "Problem-Based…

This paper uses Fraser's (1999) concept of social justice as comprising both redistribution and recognition as a frame to interrogate two "Area-Based Curriculum" projects running since 2008 in Manchester and Peterborough schools. It argues that historic concerns about working with "the local" in cross-curricular activities has…

The University of Gloucestershire, located in the southwest of the United Kingdom, is a small university with approximately 7,500 full-time students and 400 teaching staff. It has three faculties, all with a professional or applied focus: (1) Media, Art, and Technology; (2) Business, Education, and Professional Studies; and (3) Applied Sciences.…

In 2006, Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) launched a major initiative, the Top 25 Project, to embed inquiry-guided learning (IGL) into its largest-enrollment courses across the university. These are generally entry-level classes and thus affect many students: 75 percent of incoming students on its main campus in 2010 were in at least one Top 25…

This research concerns the culture of design education in the context of great change in the social and professional conditions of practice. Findings illuminate interrelationships among pedagogy, professional identity and the design of the instructional setting in programs that teach visual communication and interaction design. Participants'…

This article describes the Kettering Project, a two year project aimed at developing curricula that would improve the quality of art education in American elementary schools. How the project was organized, how the project staff worked, and theories behind the curriculum development are discussed. (Author/RM)

In a discussion of many of the problems related to the doctoral world, author describes a program now in its third year of operation: the Union Graduate School of the Union for Experimenting Colleges and Universities. (MB)

The purposes of this study were to develop a theory from a humanities program in the elementary school and to implement the theory by designing prototypes in the humanities for kindergarten through the second grade. The method used in developing the theory was library research. The humanities were limited, for purposes of the study, to include…

One of the goals of Project Onderbouw in the Netherlands is to develop an educational concept and curricula to be used in primary education. The educational concept adopted for the project is termed "developmental education." Based on neo-Vygotskian principles and other theoretical approaches, "developmental education"…

Drawing on the writings of Jean Piaget, Paulo Freire, Yoneji Masuda, John Naisbitt, and others, this paper examines the purposes of education and posits a model for developing strong sense critical thinking (SSCT) skills among elementary school students. Part I examines the purpose of education, while Part II discusses SSCT, defined as the ability…

Genesee Community College in Batavia, New York, adopted James Kinneavy's aims of discourse theory as the basis of its composition program. The program is a two-semester course for students who intend to transfer to four-year colleges. In a comparable nontransfer sequence, the first semester doubles as a remedial course for ill-prepared transfer…

In this short article I present a case for developing a new theory of music education, arguing that advances in music technology have undermined some of the most basic conceptual frameworks we currently possess. I describe some problems that might make the development of a new theory difficult and suggest some ways in which they might be overcome.…

Some tentative evidence bears out the claims of competency based education (CBE) theory, suggesting that well implemented CBE programs can bring significant benefits; however, CBE still remains a largely untested innovation, according to the author of this analysis paper. He outlines CBE in theory--its definition, implications, benefits, and…

One of 10 documents developed by the Regional Demonstration Program for Preschool Handicapped Children (New York), the curriculum model is intended to describe the means by which child development theory, empirical research data, and teacher experiential assumptions are integrated into the various phases of the curriculum. Individual sections…