In recent years, university education has changed considerably, adapting to the prevailing circumstances and proving itself an essential resource in the optimisation of the professional, social and cultural domains. In short, the changes experienced by university education have led to the achievement of quite significant results. However, at the…

This paper focuses on recognition of prior learning as part of a national policy based on European Union guidelines for lifelong learning, and it explains how recognition of prior learning has been perceived since it was implemented in Portugal in 2000. Data discussed are the result of a mixed method research project that surveyed adult learners,…

Students learn best when teachers get out of the way. Unfortunately, university classrooms continue to be intensely teacher-centric, are driven by the teacher's agenda and calendar, and embrace simple models rather than complex alternatives. These simple types of learning environments frustrate students' development of the risk-­taking and choice…

Although the value of school-community partnerships is unquestioned, the reasons for success and failure are not sufficiently understood. This mixed-methods case study examines 60 years of partnering at one urban high school, using Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory to better understand the effect on student development as measured by…

Three approaches to assessment of culturally and linguistically different students are psychometrics; "missionary," which tries to apply mainstream models to minority cultures; and developmental, which asserts that individual potential cannot be compared among students. The latter approach is most promising for diverse students. (SK)

The contemporary crisis in American Education that has resulted in Bush sponsored federal legislation for accountability and standardized testing is the setting for an essay introducing the work of French philosopher, Julia Kristeva. The comparison is between an "educated subject" that might well come to be constituted in schooling at…

Author points out discrepancies in testing methods and goals for developing students' personalities and identities. (HS)

In the traditional US higher education system, there is need for intensive study of hierarchical administrative organization, course content, and updating of conservative faculty attitudes. If the university is to survive this era of rapid social change, new educational alternatives must be considered. At some institutions educational philosophy…

In this paper, an integrated view is presented of the direction that education must take if it is to become the creative, effective, joyful enterprise that many educators long for. Educational institutions are not humane because they fail to deal with the human condition in all its variety and meaning. They continue to affirm the intellectual part…

According to Wellesley A. Foshay, in order to achieve a humane curriculum subject matter and each experience must be responsive to the human condition in the context of all pedagogical intentions of the teacher. Six classes of experience--intellectual, emotional, social, physical, aesthetic, and spiritual--make up the human existence. Teachers may…

During this period of social and political transformation in the former Soviet Union, there is no typical Russian school. Open-type schools generally emphasize student self-development. Students' intellectual, personal, and spiritual upbringing depends on a school's socioeconomic, cultural, and environmental context. Teaching practices must be…

Proposes an educational approach in which educators construct new roles as cultural awakeners and healers, enabling them to engage each learner in awakening individual cultural identity and cultural voice. To do this, educators must redefine culture, examine the link between culture and power, explore the dynamics of truth and power, and create…

Implicit within a perspective of positive psychology is the assumption that environments can be promoted to foster individual strengths through a preventative focus and the development of positive institutions. Given that the development of positive institutions has direct implications for school psychology, this paper begins to draw attention to…

Suggests that social interactions which call for self-expression in language play an important role in the development of an independent self-identity. Points out that schools rarely allow such opportunities, and thus produce people lacking in self-identity. (ARH)

Conventional approaches to teaching and learning perpetrate lies about the nature of knowledge, self-worth, and growth. Working with Foxfire and authentic assessment can offer teachers an opportunity to discover emancipating truths. These approaches demonstrate the value of students' growth in their own competence and in their self-direction. The…