Values and ethics are automatically incorporated into any teaching/learning environment or endeavour, whether or not they are consciously stated objectives. The focus on "quality of education" has sharpened as people have become concerned about a perceived rise in materialism as standards of living have improved; materialistic ambitions…

Although much is known about the features that contribute to the effectiveness of professional learning activities these are often not incorporated into the design of professional learning initiatives. This paper describes a mathematics professional learning process that was carefully designed to incorporate such principles, and illustrates its…

A teacher recently said of her own education, "When I went to school, we knew a lot and understand nearly nothing. We had no idea how what we learned related to the world beyond the classroom. What a waste!" This teacher is right. Knowing, which is important, is not the same as understanding. Simply cultivating knowledge is, as the teacher said, a…

This article explores the development of policy in quality assurance in higher education. While it briefly examines the broader context of quality assurance in South Africa in terms of the National Qualifications Framework as one of the political levers for establishing a quality assurance system in education and training systemically it focuses…

In this paper, we discuss a reflexive teaching approach, which may make the field of Organisation Studies more permeable to alternative views and thus more responsive to the complexities of processes unfolding in organisations in the context of a rapidly changing world. We contend that reflection on lived experience complements perspectives that…

High-quality professional development is essential in supporting accomplished teaching. But how is the efficacy of professional development evaluated? The authors present several methods for conducting a critical analysis of professional development. Using a large-scale professional development initiative as the focal point, they first explain…

Students just starting out in communication, or those who have been studying it for a while, often have difficulty understanding the various ways to view "communication." One way to help students make sense of the field is to look at it from the various traditions in the discipline. Craig (1999) identified the similarities and differences among…

This article relates the philosophical and conceptual study of educational institutions with educational policy. I argue that both the descriptive and prescriptive answer to "what a school is" should focus on the school that is important, which is the central case. This central case of a school should embody an ethos of openness towards the basic…

This paper discusses the technology position statement and guidelines drawn from the National Educational Technology Standards. This position paper and guidelines are grounded in the theory that content must come before technology. In other words, technology should be thought of in terms of its effect on the teaching and learning of social…

Foucault's notion of "regimes of truth" (MacNaughton 2005, 30) provides an understanding of how some discourses operate and network together to reinforce a particular powerful view of the world. These can be in oral or written forms. Early childhood education practices are drawn on the discourse of a document developed by the National Association…

This paper reports on the work of a European Commission DG Education and Culture co-financed project PBP-VC, Promoting Best Practice in Virtual Campuses, which is aimed at providing a deeper understanding of the key issues and critical success factors underlying the implementation of virtual campuses. The paper outlines a tentative model of issues…

This article describes an effort to create a teacher learning community in which university and local school teachers worked together to improve the teaching of writing at elementary and secondary levels. I describe how a university's National Writing Project (NWP) engaged in developing a cadre of selected teachers to share understandings about…

The d'Arbeloff Interactive Mathematics Project or d'AIMP is an initiative that seeks to enhance and ultimately transform the teaching and learning of introductory mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A result of this project is a suite of "mathlets," a carefully developed set of dynamic computer applets for use in the…

The findings of the evaluation of the three-year Community-Engaged Scholarship for Health Collaborative are presented, describing changes in institutional capacity for community-engaged scholarship, and changes in promotion and tenure policies and processes. The change process in the participating institutions is assessed using the Kotter model of…

This book traces the development of educational philosophy from ideas of the ancient Greeks to modern America. The volume notes the early collaboration efforts with other traditional disciplines in higher learning and the emergence of pedagogical knowledge at such institutions as Teachers College at Columbia University, the University of Chicago,…