This article explores the implications for teacher education and continuous professional development (CPD) of enquiry-based learning, by drawing specifically on data collected during a four-year curriculum development and research project, Enquiring Minds (2005-9). Within the partnership approach to curriculum design endorsed by the project,…

Capacity building is now mentioned synonymously with school improvement in much of the literature with an absence of debate on the implications of political, social and economic trends. This article explores capacity building in one low decile, multicultural, New Zealand primary school. The research, positioned within an interpretivist paradigm,…

This study was designed as a confirmatory study of work on "productive failure" (Kapur, "Cognition and Instruction," 26(3), 379-424, 2008). N = 177, 11th-grade science students were randomly assigned to solve either well- or ill-structured problems in a computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment without the provision of any…

In an earlier study, we had tested if observing a collaboration model, or alternatively, following a collaboration script could improve students' subsequent collaboration in a computer-mediated setting and promote their knowledge of good collaboration. Both model and script showed positive effects. The current study was designed to further probe…

One shortcoming of the academic curriculum is its tendency to emphasize the integrity of the separate subjects and to neglect, even ignore, connections between and among subjects as well as between students' academic experiences and those beyond school. Unfortunately, evidence indicates that recent high school students, who have completed more…

An approach to designing field-based practicum opportunities for preservice students is described. First, the importance of quality field experiences is presented, together with a conceptual framework. Second, foundational and philosophical perspectives in early childhood and early intervention (EI) and early childhood special education (ECSE)…

Public and higher education have fallen prey to forces of commercialization, privatization, and market considerations that undermine civic and critical learning while devaluing young people as a referent for a democratic and just future. This article criticizes this position and makes a case for reclaiming such vital institutions as fundamental to…

This article looks at policy for quality assurance and evaluation in Scotland, its history and more recent developments, and in particular, at the emphasis on school self-evaluation. It examines the history of the concept, its constituent elements and the role of the Inspectorate in establishing it. Further, the article discusses the Scottish…

The paper analyses quality assurance and evaluation (QAE) policy and activities in mandatory schooling at national level in Sweden. Two studies are reported: a textual analysis of national policy documents concerning QAE, and an interview study conducted with national policy brokers. Questions addressed are: What are the characteristics of Swedish…

Social constructivists posit that learning involves social interactions among individuals in a given place and time. Since teachers play a significant role in how social interactions are developed and determined in the school classroom, it is important to learn how teachers make decisions about their teaching behaviors and interactions with their…

The move to a market model of schooling has seen a radical restructuring of the ways schooling is "done" in recent times in Western countries. Although there has been a great deal of work to examine the effects of a market model on local school management (LSM), teachers' work and university systems, relatively little has been done to…

This article looks at one of the dominant themes of English education over the past twenty years. It examines the various ways in which privatisation has affected schools and schooling since the early 1980s. It may no longer be possible to indulge in a blanket defence of the public sector; but we do at least have to recognise that privatisation in…

China issued two educational principles in 1960s and 1990s respectively. Both are composed of three fundamental elements--general aim of education, concrete purposes of education and ways of realizing them. Both emphasize the combination of education and work as well as the all-round development of the educatee. The difference between the two is…

Points out that many of the ideas being propounded by educationists today can be found in the writings of Plato, Quintilian, and Comenius. (SJL)

Since there is no standard national Pre and Post Test for Principles of Finance, akin to the one for Economics, by authors created one by selecting questions from previously administered examinations. The Cronbach's Alpha of 0.851, exceeding the minimum of 0.70 for reliable pen and paper test, indicates that our Test can detect differences in…