As recently as five years ago, educators politely listened to, and largely ignored, suggestions that the world is changing at a dramatic rate and that education must adapt. Today, many educators agree that the traditional Industrial Age model of learning no longer adequately prepares students for their futures. As a result, many schools, and…

Recently, there has been growing interest in adapting Return-on-Investment thinking to education--sometimes called educational productivity, or academic-ROI. Education leaders do not seek a monetary return on their spending, rather greater student learning, or other outcomes like student citizenship, higher graduation rates, or increased lifetime…

This document is the third in a series on instructional goals ED 074 032 and ED 056 994). The paper contains checklists for writers, teachers, and systems researchers on how to take apart and rebuild a goal to fit an instructional system. The first section contains: a) transparency masters to help explain this process to large groups; b)…

Discusses from a systems-theory perspective the goals and functions of secondary education--and conditions affecting its performance--in western societies. Suggests definitions of the fundamental choices facing schools and principles to guide educational reform. (MCG)

This paper provides a synthesis of the literature on the role of benchmarking, with a focus on its use in the public sector. Benchmarking is discussed in the context of quality systems, of which it is an important component. The paper describes the basic types of benchmarking, pertinent research about its application in the public sector, the…

A replicable process for improving instruction through the consistent use of student data collected before, during, and after instruction is proposed. A rational analysis of different types of error rates (theoretical, base, posttest, instructional) and discrimination indices (base, posttest) leads to a set of rules for identifying test items and…

This document presents a case study for an innovative session exploring the nature of learning and the relationship between action learning within academic programs in adult education/human resource development (HRD) and the higher education institutions that house them. The first two sections discuss the dilemmas confronting higher education and…

In the era of globalization, Malaysia's ability to remain economically competitive depends on the skills of its workforce. The policies and practices of Malaysia's vocational education system must be revised to do more to give the country's disabled citizens the training they need to find employment and become taxpayers. More concerted efforts are…