In higher education one of the most important learning goals is deep understanding. Achieving this goal needs time and effort. The authors discuss their observations of student time use on the basis of several case studies which they have conducted in the field of engineering education in Finland. The time that the students spend studying is…

Critical literacy is about how people see and interact with the world; it is about having, as a regular part of one's life, the skills and desire to evaluate society and the world. It is especially focused on issues of power: Who has it and who is denied it; how it is used and how it is abused. More specifically, it often revolves around issues of…

Vocational education programs show promise for reducing recidivism, measured most typically through re-arrest and re-incarceration data, among adult offenders. Yet, such programs for women in U.S. correctional facilities have more often provided training in gender-stereotyped and lower-paid professions when compared to vocational programs in men's…

This is an account of a programmer utilizing the application of action learning to the development of capacities of citizens. The Citizen Leadership for Democratic Governance is designed to equip citizens with the skills to get involved and handle the difficult tasks of governance in their communities in South Africa. After a history of apartheid…

Complementary schools for immigrant and ethnic minority children in the UK have been an important socio-political, educational movement in the country for nearly half a century. They have made a major impact on the lives of thousands of children of different ethnic backgrounds, attracted public debates vis-a-vis the government's involvement in…

Fostering preservice teachers' multicultural development is critically germane to teacher education programs. Preparing preservice teachers to teach in urban areas means preparing them to teach a culturally and economically diverse population of students. In this article, the authors feature the Urban Semester Program, a pre-student teaching urban…

The purpose of this study was to determine if an association existed between student achievement scores and classroom practices used among third-grade teachers in Upper East Tennessee. The variables included classroom environment, instructional context, and social context, employing developmentally appropriate practices (DAP). Teacher…

This semiannotated bibliography, developed for an honors program at the University if Minnesota on "Women and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict," lists regularly and irregularly appearing periodicals focusing on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (8 sources) and books addressing the conflict (46 sources). The course syllabus and outline are…

"Globalized E-Learning Cultural Challenges" explores the issues educators, administrators, and instructional designers face when transferring knowledge and skills to other cultures through e-learning. Most e-learning courses have been designed in Western cultures, but the largest and fastest-growing consumer groups live in Eastern…

Case-based methodology has been a staple of teacher education coursework for many years. However, commercial case studies do not always meet specific teacher candidates' needs or match their experiences in school settings. Teacher educators in an Early Childhood program in a midwestern university developed an innovative use of case-based…

For decades, educators have wrestled with how to handle the increasingly diverse religions of an increasingly diverse student body. Sometimes, the line between church and state--what schools can and cannot do under the Constitution--can feel confusing and slippery. Today, religion has become a subject one high school teachers describes as even…

Primary sources in religion and history enable first year university students to connect "content-based" linked courses in the core curriculum. Fifty-four first year university students in three separate pairs of courses worked in teams to present oral critical reports on texts related to the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the…

Course management systems (CMSs), such as Blackboard, Desire2Learn, or WebCT, have become a common resource at universities, colleges, and distance learning organizations. Research into how these systems are used for learning is in an early state. Currently, this research focuses on technical features in a CMS more than research about how people…

A school social work intervention called the "Getting Better Phenomenon" is redesigned as a curriculum resource for eighth- and ninth-grade teachers. The activities in the curriculum represent a synergy of provincial learning expectations; academic assessment and evaluation structures; teacher-guided delivery of student-generated "course" content;…

Fifty experts with a special interest in peace education (and representing 22 different countries) were confronted with the following set of questions (as part of individual interviews): "In many countries, questions related to disarmament and peace are highly controversial. Would you anticipate any difficulties, for example with parents or…