Though the concept of online community has been heralded as a promising tool to support teacher professional development, a robust and meaningful definition remains elusive. This review draws together research on community, teaching, and learning in traditional and online settings. Examples of current efforts in the field of online learning…

The present learning discourse and terms such as "learning in practice", "situated learning", "project and problem based learning" are like variations on a recurrent theme: learning by doing--the striking maxims of progressivism. The newest reforms confirm that the maxim is still alive as a standpoint with…

The proclamation of the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development by the United Nations has placed education in general, and environmental education in particular, at the front of a future full of important and uncertain meanings. On the one hand, those inviting a conceptual, theoretical and praxiological revision of the…

This article deals with central issues in the field of sociology and politics of education after the publication of the outcomes of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) study for Germany. These outcomes serve to remind us of the old debate on politics of education in the 1960s. The main topic since then remains the reproduction…

Over the past decade, many government and policy documents have highlighted with greater urgency the need for lifelong learning. What do present mission statements of Canadian universities have to say regarding lifelong learning? In researching this question we analyzed the institutional mission statements of 58 Canadian universities to identify…

"Real inclusion" of kinds with special needs occurs everywhere, inside the classroom as well as outside. This is a fairly basic principle, however, it is not always easy to achieve. In this article, the author describes how her family have had to "fight" for inclusive education and shares some amazing moments of inclusion with…

Learning is a natural process shared by its members in most social and educational institutions, and is seen as both the primary vehicle and foundation for the building and achievement of one's career and/or personal goals. This research offers critical insight into the dimensions of cohort based learning communities and the implications it…

"What gets assessed is what gets taught" is a common assertion whose meaning is often underestimated. It is not just "what" gets assessed, but "how" it is assessed that has implications for what is learned. When a child who is asked the meaning of his report card grades responds, "If I knew that I'd be the…

The article deals with the question of living with others, one of the most significant relationships of human life, and challenge the common understanding of the origins of living with others, where a human being is not just becoming a social but also a moral being through social institutions of societies. This common understanding of a social…

Nowadays the European Universities are worried about how to adapt higher education to the new European Higher Education Area, as proposed in the Bologna Magna Charta Universitatum of 1998, and signed by 32 European Education Ministers. One of the key points in this higher education reform was the introduction of new Master's level curricula. These…

Action learning programmes are supposed to result in both personal and organizational development. However, organizational development can be negligible because, as the term implies, a connection must be secured between what has been learned by action learning participants and other members of an organization. Here, the facilitation and analysis…

This article discusses a business school professor's approach to teaching a University Seminar, the first course in the freshman year component of the liberal arts requirements at Seattle Pacific University. Drawing on Cardinal Newman's "The Idea of a University" (1873/1947), three theses shaped the design of the seminar. First, the…

Piecemeal change to improve schooling is an approach that at its worst does more harm than good, and at its best is limited to creating pockets of good within school districts. When it comes to improving schooling in a district, however, creating pockets of good isn't good enough. Whole school systems need to be improved. This article focuses on…

The present study aims to investigate whether the learning materials that based on constructivist learning principles have an effect on fifth grade Social Studies students' attitudes, their academic success and their retention. The study was conducted at Sehit Ali Gaffar Okkan Elementary School, Eskisehir. The participants of the study were 5th…

Author Lyn Lesch advocates that learning cannot be measured by empirical results like testing and grading. As the founder of Chicago's The Children's School, Lesch didn't give grades or submit students to standardized testing. Such conditions may seem blasphemous to most educators, but the results spoke for themselves. Without the high-stakes…