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This paper explores the work of a particular document in issuing educational values. The document is the report Embedding Values and Attitudes in Curriculum: Shaping a Better Future, launched in 2021 and published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Inspired by a practice-oriented method of document analysis and the concepts of modifying work and contexting, we show how the issue of values is modified and transformed through the text. We illustrate how different data is used in the transformation with examples from the Nordic countries. Our analysis revealed five modifications that transformed the issue of values from a global societal issue embedded in international and national regulations to an issue defined by the OECD's Learning Compass and its nine competencies. The report gives prominence to the individual learner and competencies needed to navigate towards a future of well-being. Hence, the issue of values is reduced to universal competencies, and the report can manoeuvrer its argument to avoid issuing values as something controversial. Finally, we argue that the ways in which values are issued implies a curriculum design that is not compatible with the traditional curriculum format based on didaktik and Nordic ambitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the contexts, structures and administrations of early childhood education (ECE) may differ internationally, effective pedagogical leadership remains an essential component in supporting young children's development and learning. This paper reports on a comparative study which considered ECE in two different settings, Finland and Florida, providing insight into teachers' perspectives on the characteristics of pedagogical leadership. This study sought to investigate and compare the perspectives of ECE teachers and directors in Finland and Florida via their discourses about teachers' pedagogical leadership. The goal was to provide an overview of the ECE teachers' and directors' discourses in each location, in order to allow comparison and a better understanding of the influence of aspects including locational contexts, curricular guidelines and teacher preparation on the ECE teachers' and directors' perspectives. A comparative case study design was used. The data consisted of semi-structured focus group interviews and individual interviews with ECE teachers and centre directors in Finland and in Florida. Data from the two locations were first analysed separately to identify the main discourses; secondly, discourses were compared collectively to reveal major themes. The analysis indicated a similar conceptualisation of distributed pedagogical leadership. However, differences were identified in teachers' expectations of independence in instructional decisions, and the extension of pedagogical leadership practices within and beyond the ECE centres. The analysis of discourses led to the identification of three major themes, which generated implications for teacher preparation, curriculum development and implementation, and ECE programme directions. The study enables a more comprehensible conceptualisation of teachers' pedagogical leadership as it emerged from teachers' and directors' discourses across two locations. Pedagogical leadership is recognised as an indicator of high-quality pedagogy in early childhood education and the findings highlight the need to continuously support and strengthen teachers' pedagogical leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Norway, the national curriculum together with the Education Act serves as the foundation for teaching and learning in primary and secondary education and training. Local educational providers are given autonomy to develop local adaptations of the centrally given subject-specific curriculum competence aims. This article explores some structural enablements and constraints tied to teachers' opportunities to make use of local content in curricula in lower secondary schools in Norway, including rural/urban differences. The analysis is based on data consisting of 18 qualitative interviews with teachers in two municipalities and participant observation in one of the municipalities in Northern Norway. The finding of this paper is that the design of the national curriculum allows for local content based on its competence aims. This serves as an enabler for teachers to create and enact local content in education. However, there are several constraints that limit local adaptation for teachers – time pressure, lack of access to content due to finances and distance and losing school control of local curriculum. Also, these constraints have a different impact depending on the geographical context. The article employs Margaret Archer's theories on centralized and decentralized educational systems to analyse these structural enablements and constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Sustainable development, as an area of knowledge, appears in several different places in the curriculum and does not fit neatly within the scope of traditional subject areas. In many countries, including Sweden, it has long been upheld as an important tool for increasing understanding of, and dealing with, environmental problems. It is not clear, however, what role education can actually have in the making of a more sustainable future. Even though there are several potential ways for sustainable development to be involved in education, the concept raises many questions when transferred to the school context. Purpose: This paper investigates how teachers deal with the difficulty of defining and approaching sustainable development as an area of knowledge in Swedish schools. Sample: This article is based on semi-structured interviews with 40 teachers, 13 of whom were lower secondary school teachers (pupil age 12-15) and 27 were upper secondary school teachers (pupil age 15-18). The study involves teachers in all subjects where sustainable development is a goal in the syllabus. The study is also based on participant observation in one upper secondary class. A total of 17 different schools were involved, from a wide range of locations in Sweden. Design and methods: The paper builds on qualitative data and the analysis of transcribed interviews and group interviews with teachers in Swedish lower and upper secondary schools. Group interviews, involving three or more people, were conducted on eight occasions. The pupils at an upper secondary school were also observed while they were working on a course called 'policy and sustainable development'. Data were transcribed and analysed thematically. Findings: The analysis suggests that, according to the teachers' experiences, the demands of equivalence and measurability in school have increased and that this affects how sustainable development is approached in teaching and learning. Three main categories of knowledge were identified. The study also presents two representations that model how teachers may approach knowledge about sustainable development - metaphorically termed 'the Accountant' and 'the Adventurer' - and their different effects on knowledge. Conclusions: There is a tendency for complex knowledge areas such as sustainable development, which do not fit seamlessly into traditional curriculum subjects, to become oversimplified when translated into teaching situations. According to the representations that we described metaphorically, the teacher, as an accountant, is characterised by 'knowledge instrumentalism', which means that teachers administer knowledge and the pupils consume it. In this transactional model, the accountant is also very dependent on external governance and control. Alternatively, the teacher, as an adventurer, is characterised by authority, knowledge and self-control. In this model, knowledge sometimes grows in an unpredictable way in the meeting between people who share common experiences. For adventurers, sustainable development is a matter of commitment and awareness, and it involves an explicit stance. The metaphors can be placed on a continuum which describes how teachers manage the demands of the school system in relation to the knowledge area of sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes a recent review of Library and Information Management courses offered by the School of Information Studies at Charles Sturt University, and the resulting program of curriculum renewal and expansion. This program aimed to address concerns over the long-term sustainability of the courses and respond to an increasingly converging professional landscape. The courses were redesigned in a way that allowed them to maintain their relevance to the School's established librarianship market, while at the same time develop a significant application to other information fields. This was achieved by essentially turning the curriculum on its head. Instead of a library focussed core with electives in other information areas, the new curriculum offers core subjects that cover the information-people-technology nexus in generic fashion and provides a foundation for a wide range of specialisations. This transformation represents what could be described as a move from a traditional Library and Information Studies (LIS) approach to a broader Information Studies (IS) orientation, accommodating advanced areas of study in specific fields, including Librarianship (L). The paper goes on to discuss key issues concerning the implementation of the course redesigns, and the results of their implementation to date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tertiary programmes in a discipline such as engineering must balance the competing needs of two key stakeholders: the university that designs and delivers the programme, and the professional body that accredits it. Programme and curriculum design in universities is traditionally bottom-up in nature, with courses designed by individual academics, and assembled into cognate programmes. Graduate qualities and accreditation criteria are mapped retrospectively onto the structure. Designing programmes from the top down, driven byuniversity and the accreditation body needs, is a desirable goal. However, without proper support tools, balancing competing needs across multiple courses and year levels is a complex task. Quality Function Deployment (QFD) was created for this precise purpose. Treating the design of a tertiary programme the same as the design of a system suggests that QFD, and the implementation tool known as the House of Quality (HoQ), should be ideally suited to this purpose. The aim of this paper is to show how QFD and the HoQ can be applied to the design of an engineering programme, creating a specification that accurately reflects the voices of stakeholders, and serves as a benchmark for validating that these needs have been met in the implemented design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK is typical of many industrialised countries at the present time in searching for new kinds of assessment procedure which will be appropriate on the one hand to the goals of the more vocational curricula currently being developed and, on the other, be relevant to the whole range of pupil needs and achievement. The paper explores the impetus behind such changes and argues that the policies so generated embody a number of political and educational contradictions. Using recent developments in England and Scotland as a case study, the paper argues that, despite their egalitarian potential in educational terms, the underlying political climate of cost-efficiency and laissez-faire individualism which in turn inhibits any substantial change in traditional educational values is likely to result in reinforced, rather than reduced social divisions being associated with such initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents responses on the article of S.G. Grant concerning the New York State social studies framework. Sandra Mathison blames the paper for not making the framework as an instantiation of an on-going political argument. Stephen C. Fleury contends broadly that an array of social forces influence the decisions of teachers and educators. It states that Fleury and Madison want to condemn the New York State Education Department (SED) for trying to regulate and control teachers and teaching.

The article presents the authors' perspectives on the paper by E. Brown and R. Kass concerning statistics education and practice in the U.S. They agree that it is essential for the field to take significant curriculum changes and additions to its content and focus of training to encourage students to become statisticians. They mentions the important of broadening the view of statistic education, incorporating real-world data analysis and skills in computing and data technologies.

Despite the ‘progressive’ influence of the English Plowden Report and Scottish Primary Memorandum on British primary curricula from the 1960s onwards, secondary education has generally continued to follow a more traditional subject-centred route and post-war educational theorists have not generally been favourably inclined to other than subject-based modes of curriculum planning and organisation. However, in the light of current curriculum reviews on both sides of the Scottish border – calling for more educationally meaningful curricula – the perennial issue of how school knowledge might best be ordered for the coherent educational experience of pupils seems worth revisiting. To this end, this paper examines some of the influential post-war philosophical arguments against integrated and interdisciplinary approaches to the curricular organisation of knowledge, concluding that they are not as compelling as they might formerly have seemed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subject of geography is declining in popularity at secondary school level and recent developments following the ‘cultural turn’ in Higher Education have had little impact in revitalising it. In this paper I explore the question: is there a problem with the school geography curriculum policy? After briefly sketching the history of the Geography National Curriculum policy (GNC), I focus on Caputo's (1997) commentary on Derrida and the idea of deconstruction and invention to explore the contemporary GNC policy text (1999) programme of study at Key Stage 3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the social meaning of subject choice in the post-16 context through a case study of Media Studies in a selective school. Students' accounts are discussed in terms of both their enjoyment of the subject and their negotiation of its ‘legitimacy’. The analysis of their comments in interviews stresses the subject's precarious position in a school where a relatively traditional hierarchy of subjects still prevails. It also considers the strength of family ‘projects’ in framing children's educational ‘choices’. Media Studies is discussed as a negotiable option primarily facilitating projections into a new middle-class sense of self-hood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inclusion of Drama as a subject in the Australian Curriculum is largely a result of the unwavering advocacy of national associations (like Drama Australia) and alliances, in particular the National Advocates for Arts Education (NAAE). This article briefly outlines stages in national curriculum development in Australia and delineates key organisations and individuals who have contributed to the inclusion of drama within Australia’s national curriculum. The paper draws from previously published material, interviews with representatives from each state professional association, and extended interviews with members of the NAAE. The authors propose that the most significant contributing factor to the inclusion of drama in the educational entitlement for all young people in the Australian national curriculum has been collaborative advocacy, carefully managed by a national advocacy collective. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The conditions for drama in compulsory education vary from country to country. The situation in Queensland, Australia, is interesting as Drama was introduced as an arts subject in the compulsory school curriculum (P-10) in 2002. This paper uses a case study approach, to describe and analyses the context and conditions for this specific curriculum development project. Findings suggest that curriculum development is unlikely to be a predictable and linear process, and to some extent, curriculum documents are reflecting changes that have already occurred. The author proposes a list of considerations which may be of benefit to drama educators in a range of curriculum contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Curriculum developers, whether at a systemic or classroom-based level, become involved in complex decision-making about what is important and valuable for students to learn; how and when that learning can be enabled; and what evidence will tell us that learning has taken place. This paper identifies a few of the significant influences and constraints on the systemic curriculum development process, and argues that we need to acknowledge the limitations of personal and professional knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last two and a half decades, the tools of government and methods of public service provision have markedly diversified. The increased complexity of the policy and organizational environment presents difficult challenges for public administration programs, especially in the design of a curriculum appropriate to the new mixed world of public and private services, and particularly if curriculum material appropriate for managing contemporary public and nonprofit agencies is to be fully integrated into the MPA curriculum. This paper discusses the changing public service landscape that the MPA curriculum must address and ways in which the curriculum can be adapted to prepare students to meet the changes and challenges of contemporary public service provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing a joint curriculum across different institutions is a unique and novel initiative to harmonize university education in Europe, sharing the efforts of curriculum development (hence reducing their cost), and to improve the quality of education. Our ongoing project covers seven partner institutions from five countries -- four in the role of beneficiary partners and three have an advisory role. This paper outlines the principles adopted in the creation and development of an MSc in Software Engineering that is compliant with the Bologna agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines one university's efforts to institutionalize a graduate nonprofit curriculum. It does so through the lens of situational analysis and with an eye to five key challenges that have dogged the effort--operating in an inauspicious organizational environment, creating an interdisciplinary program in a discipline-rich context, securing a praxis analytical focus and shared pedagogical stance, ensuring a comparative analytical focus, and developing a sustainable balance between student needs and expert claims. These concerns are examined for what might be learned from each that may hold broader significance for nonprofit curriculum design, program development, and implementation. While some of these conditions are unique, what they suggest about the challenges for those seeking institutionalization of nonprofit curricula are not. The essay seeks to suggest how and why that might be so. The paper argues that, regardless of the case-specific factors at play in the present analysis, would-be nonprofit program builders would be wise to be attentive to their operating context, to the nature of existing program curricula and organizational cultures, and to the clear specification of their own curricular aims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study drew on Bernstein's theory and Moscovici's theory of Social Representations to investigate how children in classrooms with different types of structuration developed social representation of the curriculum. Comparable case studies were carried out in schools chosen to reflect three types of pedagogy according to Bernstein's typology. Twelve classrooms took part and ethnographic investigations were employed to compile a typology of recognition and realisation rules to map the range and type of curriculum structuration in each. Children's representations of the curriculum were investigated through specially designed tasks. Findings showed that as children gained experience of schooling they constructed more elaborate social representations of the curriculum regardless of the pedagogic mode and that classroom structuration became a feature of the junior rather than the infant children's representations. Older children in classrooms with performance pedagogies had two classifications for recognising classroom culture, while those in classrooms with mixed and competence pedagogies did not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies curriculum as the pivotal link between theory and practice and asserts that all stages of curriculum research and development are characterized by elements of uncertainty. Particular curriculum projects which took their methodological impetus from research in the field are briefly reviewed and areas of indeterminancy highlighted. The writer explains that rather than being an annoying flaw which defies specification, 'the uncertainty principle' which underlies curriculum research and development in fact reflects the reality of practice more adequately as it mirrors the contradictory nature of art, the pluralism of schools and society, and the capriciousness of learning. Further, it is suggested that the entire conceptual and operational structure of a curriculum needs to allow for multiple areas of access and variable paths for movement and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper correlates past events in art and education with analyses of our social context, as an approach to future curriculum planning. It explores Barkan's theoretical speculations on curriculum, and suggests considering curricular content based on knowledge about how systems operate. Curriculum for the future, a new paradyme for the study of art, should honor the arts individually for their uniqueness while also looking at them in a more comprehensive manner based on today's trend towards more wholistic solutions to social and economic problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to examine DBAE issues for their origins, meanings, and implications. These issues are discussed within the four general categories of conceptual structure, curriculum selections, research foundations, and organizational affiliations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the challenge before art education today-that of identifying an appropriate mission within the context of the "new" school curriculum proposed by recent national reports. Implications for art teacher education are drawn and a model teacher preparation program overiew is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Penn State Seminar focused on the why of art education, the what, the to whom, teaching-learning, and curriculum. Generally there were two papers on each topic, one by a scholar from outside of art education and the other by an individual from within the field. The most pervasive theme of the Seminar was the notion that art or art education is a discipline in its own right. Citing Bruner and the work of artists, art historians, and critics as models for inquiry, Seminar participants concluded that the curriculum in art can be both structured and disciplined, with the goals of art instruction determined from the characteristics of the discipline rather than of children at various stages of development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies aspects of the development and operations of a prison art program, as a series of field notes. Areas of investigation include the organization and maintenance of art instruction, participation of staff and prisoners, planning for continuous program support, training of prison arts specialists, and development of curriculum and instructional strategies for prison art educators. Observations are also made of special problems inherent in a prison setting related to time, space, confinement, and regimentation and their effects on the inmate artist and on the teacher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addresses the issue of the need for the development of a post compulsory curriculum adequate to the demands of the 21st century in British education. Qualitative and quantitative issues involved in the development of a 21st century curriculum; Circumstances that can influence curriculum development efforts in the country.

Discusses the factors being considered in national curriculum-making in Australia. Trends in the Australian economy; Costs of education in relation to the outcomes of schooling; Integration of education and youth policies.

Evaluates the effectiveness of planned curriculum change in Great Britain. Citation of the minimal impact of curriculum change on schools and colleges; Requirement of changes in the internal organization of the school; Involvement of teachers in decision-making.

This paper is intended to stimulate discussion of potential curriculum developments in order to improve the effectiveness of architectural education, specifically to enhance the relationship between design and "technical" courses. It begins with a synopsis of past attempts to modify architectural curricula in order to meet the demands imposed by the expansion of issues considered germane to a comprehensive professional education. Following this, specific emphasis is given to clarifying the integral and significant connection between technology and architectural design. Finally, several innovative notions of potential curriculum revisions and teaching methods are presented which perhaps can effectively integrate the presentation of technology into the architectural curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on Curriculum'n'instruction, the merger of educational content and teaching approach in a classroom setting. It mentions that the dynamic and developing process of Curriculum'n'instruction is circular, forming an interactive chain of actions and events. It talks about contributions of teacher to lesson construction. It concludes that, curricular issues and instructional issues become merged in action, as teachers and students interact during the everyday events of classroom life.

The article examines aspects of distance education, a form of study which is of growing importance both to individual students and to society. It is close linked with educational technology, but can be applied to various learning and teaching theories. Applications of distance education are discussed. Students who make use of distance-study methods are described. The development of courses for distance study is examined. The importance of two-way communication in distance study is analyzed. Theoretical approaches to distance education are presented.

The concepts of employability and generational effects are emerging disciplines within the context of business education management research, but their complementary role in curriculum development and enrichment is yet to be explored. The study employs a work-related employability course for a business school undergraduate cohort (N = 267) consisting of various generations to examine the generational effects from the student stakeholder perspective of work-related learning outcomes in employability embedded curricula. This research shows the differences in students' perceptions based on age generations as shown to be marked by the Generations X, Y and Z, which also produces a different inter-generational learning opportunity with distinct characteristics. We established that undergraduate multi-generational cohorts expect contextualised employability-related teaching to accompany designing and embedding work-related employability curricula. We show that an employability embedded curriculum is likely to improve students' employability decisions when different inter-generational learning environments are factored into programme development, delivery, and assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National and regional variations in school systems, have often been explained in comparative school governance research in the Nordic countries with variations in long-standing traditions in curriculum development, characterised by a dichotomy between an Anglo-American curriculum tradition and a German/European continental tradition of Didaktik. These categories have been employed to explain the characteristics of nation-specific teaching professions, such as the Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, or German, US and English. This article suggests that the dichotomies in question complicate understandings of teachers and how they are governed in different national contexts. We investigate these relations by an analysis of quantitative data from the OECD TALIS study on how teachers receive formal feedback and appraisal in six countries, and an analysis of qualitative data in feedback technologies in Germany and Norway. Drawing on the empirical material, we suggest that the Didaktik-curriculum dichotomy might overemphasise the role of state governance in relations between different actors in school systems. Instead, the article imply that we need to discuss the role of parents and peers in educational governance more thoroughly. To further theory, it is suggested investigating teachers in the field of tension between state and civil society, and the role of teachers as civil servants and/or administrators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the state of the educational system in Great Britain. Conception of educational planning at national and local level; Developments in educational studies; Improvements of the curriculum policy.

Background: Recent educational legislation has redefined and extended teachers' space for exercising professional autonomy. For instance, Norwegian English teachers enjoy substantial freedom in choosing texts for classroom use, provided they meet the competence aims of the national subject curriculum. Teachers are expected to use their professional judgement when choosing the means and modes of teaching to meet local needs. At the same time, current educational legislation requires that teachers exercise their autonomy as participants in 'professional communities' to ensure common standards for teaching and to assume shared responsibility for the pupils' learning. Purpose and method: The research question is whether the redefined space for professional autonomy corresponds to teachers' understanding of such autonomy. In this article, I address this question through an analysis of lower secondary teachers' discourses underlying the selection of texts for their learners of English as a Foreign Language. A total of 18 teachers were interviewed and a critical discourse analysis approach was used for data analysis. Findings: Findings suggest that the teachers' reasoning about text choice and teacher autonomy are negotiated between two potentially competing discourse positions. The first promotes individual freedom of choice, and the second is the view that the textbook represents an authoritative interpretation of syllabi aims, as well as a premise for the teachers' common planning. Although the teachers speak in favour of choosing texts freely, few say they exploit this freedom beyond choosing between texts in the textbook. In addition, decisions to deviate from the textbook appear to be viewed as hinging primarily on the individual teacher's discretion. Conclusion: Thus, possibilities for change rely mainly on individual teachers and are placed outside the sphere of collective planning. I argue that the teachers' discursive practices may limit rather than extend their space for exercising professional autonomy regarding this area and that the textbook plays an important role in this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amid the implementation of new curriculum standard regarding statistics and new recommendations for preservice secondary mathematics teachers (PSMTs) to teach statistics, there is a need to examine the current state of PSMTs' knowledge of the statistical content they will be expected to teach. This study reports on the statistical knowledge of 217 PSMTs from a purposeful sample of 18 universities across the United States. The results show that PSMTs may not have strong Common Statistical Knowledge that is needed to teach statistics to high school students. PSMTs' strengths include identifying appropriate measures of center, while weaknesses involve issues with variability, sampling distributions, p-values, and confidence intervals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the authors' comment on the paper by E. Brown and R. Kass concerning statistics education and practice in the U.S. They contend that the recommendations by Brown and Kass for changes on interdisciplinary training of statisticians, graduate programs and curricula are potentially perilous and maybe counterproductive. They also note on the lack funding enough to support the changes recommended by Brown and Kass.

The last half-dozen years have seenThe American Statisticianpublish well-argued and provocative calls to change our thinking about statistics and how we teach it, among them Brown and Kass, Nolan and Temple-Lang, and Legler et al. Within this past year, the ASA has issued a new and comprehensive set of guidelines for undergraduate programs (ASA,Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Programs in Statistical Science). Accepting (and applauding) all this as background, the current article argues the need to rethink our curriculum from the ground up, and offers five principles and two caveats intended to help us along the path toward a new synthesis. These principles and caveats rest on my sense of three parallel evolutions: the convergence of trends in the roles of mathematics, computation, and context within statistics education. These ongoing changes, together with the articles cited above and the seminal provocation by Leo Breiman call for a deep rethinking of what we teach to undergraduates. In particular, following Brown and Kass, we should put priority on two goals, to make “fundamental concepts accessible” and to “minimize prerequisites to research.” [Received December 2014. Revised July 2015] [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 2011, the University of Minnesota’s Construction Management (CM) program received funding from the Writing Enriched Curriculum (WEC) project. WEC operationalizes the University’s commitment supporting integration of effective discipline-relevant writing instruction. Funding, collaboration with members of the WEC team, and technical support enabled the assembly of a comprehensive, multi-year plan to examine and improve CM student writing. Because many, if not all, elements of the WEC process may prove portable to other institutional contexts, this article describes the process of creating, implementing, and assessing the faculty-authored CM Writing Plan. Specifically discussed are the initial stages of a multi-year process including the development of a Writing Plan; the first year course mapping; analysis of writing assigned in CM courses; and work the department will do going forward with WEC. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, the author addresses the problem of content knowledge dominating the school curriculum and the resultant marginalization of sociocivic and moral dispositions. Given the problems associated with teaching dispositions directly, the author offers four curricular aims that collectively develop the attitudes required of democratic citizens through deliberate employment in daily curriculum planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite emphasis and progress in developing collaborative inquiry in computer-supported collaborative learning research, little attention has been given to examining how collective learning can be assessed in computer-supported collaborative learning classrooms, and how students can have agency in assessing their own collaborative process. We propose that assessments should capture both individual and collective aspects of learning and be designed in ways that foster collaboration. We describe the design of student-directed electronic portfolio assessments to characterize and "scaffold" collaborative inquiry using Knowledge Forum™. Our design involved asking students to identify exemplary notes in the computer discourse depicting knowledge building episodes using four knowledge building principles as criteria. We report three studies that examined the designs and roles of knowledge building portfolios with graduate and Grade 12 students in Hong Kong and Canada. The findings suggest that knowledge building portfolios help to characterize collective knowledge advances and foster domain understanding. We discuss lessons learned regarding how knowledge building may be fostered and provide principles for designing assessments that can be used to evaluate and foster deep inquiry in asynchronous online discussion environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes data from the Community Mapping Project, a set of statistical activities and inquiry projects within a summer seminar for high school students. In designing the Community Mapping Project, we attempted to create conditions under which urban students themselves would come to recognize how mathematics is relevant to their lives and their communities. Using mixed methods, we analyzed the pre- and postassessments and final projects of 25 high school students to investigate what students learned from their experience. We also analyzed the data from video case studies to begin to understand how learning was organized. Our qualitative analysis revealed several tensions that emerged between the goals and norms of our instantiation of a culturally relevant pedagogy and the goals and norms of our mathematics pedagogy. We argue that how these tensions are navigated mediate what opportunity students have for learning statistics. This article provides some considerations and lessons learned that may help inform both teachers who wish to rethink their mathematics pedagogy, and the designers who wish to create culturally relevant curricula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a cohesive, empirically grounded categorization system differentiating the types of generalizations students constructed when reasoning mathematically. The generalization taxonomy developed out of an empirical study conducted during a 3-week teaching experiment and a series of individual interviews. Qualitative analysis of data from teaching sessions with 7 seventh-graders and individual interviews with 7 eighth-graders resulted in a taxonomy that distinguishes between students' activity as they generalize, or generalizing actions, and students' final statements of generalization, or reflection generalizations. The three major generalizing action categories that emerged from analysis are (a) relating, in which one forms an association between two or more problems or objects, (b) searching, in which one repeats an action to locate an element of similarity, and (c) extending, in which one expands a pattern or relation into a more general structure. Reflection generalizations took the form of identifications or statements, definitions, and the influence of prior ideas or strategies. By locating generalization within the learner's viewpoint, the taxonomy moves beyond casting it as an activity at which students either fail or succeed to allow researchers to identify what students see as general, and how they engage in the act of generalizing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the place of women of the world in the implicit and explicit social studies curriculum of the schools. The authors establish a postcslonislfeminist framework for dealing with this topic and draw on evidence from personal testimo- nies of immigrant and native women, the treatment of women of the "third world" by mainstream media, social studies curriculum standards, snd sne classroom teacher's story. Central to the article is an examination of the tension teachers face in dealing with issues of gender cross-culturally as they navigate between ethnocen- trism and cultural relativism towards whet is called "the middle ground." The au- thors offer suggestions at the end of the articlefor incsrpsrating inaterisl about women of the world into the social studies curriculum from a postcslsnialfeminist perspec- tive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's perspective on the process of rethinking pedagogy in the social studies. He contends that the process is complex and multifaceted and that reform in social studies begins with a vision that may guide efforts to create educational change. He asserts that seeking to inform and evolve the practice of social studies education, educators must strive for collaborative models for designing, conducting and disseminating research to policymakers and practitioners.

The article describes a model of collaboration for the development and active promotion of specialized curriculum and training opportunities in the field of mental retardation (MR) and developmental disabilities (DD). Schools of social work vary widely in their ability and commitment to prepare students for practice with individuals with disabilities. Given their teaching and training expertise and resources, University Affiliated Programs (UAPs) are uniquely positioned to partner with schools of social work to remedy this situation. Individuals with disabilities-whether physical, developmental, or a combination of both-represent a vulnerable population and, as such, fall within the traditional domain of social work practice. A recent survey of social work schools by DePoy and Miller (1996) found that few offered developmental disabilities content in their curricula, and those that did offered it primarily as a field practica experience. Of the 144 schools responding to their survey, only about one fifth offered specific courses with developmental disability content, while nearly 90% offered field practica experiences relating to developmental disabilities.

This article focuses on a study which is conducted to examine the effectiveness of economics as a problem-solving tool in an undergraduate business curriculum. The experimental design compares the performances of students enrolled in a problem-solving interdisciplinary program with that of students enrolled in the same course taught in the standard lecture-discussion format. A test was administered to a group enrolled in an experimental interdisciplinary business program, and a control group that consisted of students enrolled in a lecture-discussion section of intermediate microeconomic (price) theory. significant. The results indicate that students enrolled in the standard lecture-discussion format retain concepts and principles, apply these concepts and principles to specific disciplinary problems, and analyze a complex socioeconomic problem as well as, if not better than, students enrolled in a format that emphasized analysis of problems with economic aspects as part of the course requirement.

Until the 1960s Canadian school geography suffered from inadequate textbooks and a lack of trained teachers. After that date the growth of university geography departments, the establishment of geography teachers' associations, and the publication of many good textbooks and other teaching materials ensured geography an important role in the high schools of most provinces. New geography curricula built on established strengths in regional geography rather than reflecting developments in spatial theory. A comparison of the high school geography programs of Ontario and Quebec illustrates two different but equally valid approaches toward curriculum planning. In Ontario, the Ministry of Education establishes broad guidelines within which teachers are expected to develop distinctive courses. The Quebec Ministry of Education is more prescriptive and defines programs in terms of detailed objectives. In both places, as in several other Canadian provinces, geography's strength derives from the commitment of geography specialist working as teachers and as Ministry program planners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the impact of Nuffield 'A' level Physics Project (NAP) on curriculum development in the U.S. and Great Britain. Details regarding the establishment of the project; Introduction of NAP draft materials to preliminary trial schools; Criticism faced by the project; Launch of the project.

Comments on the philosophical principles underlying the curriculum and the libertarian attitude towards education in Great Britain. Reasons for the differences in the educational recommendations made by those who employ the libertarian argument; Justifications of the compulsory curriculum courses; Implications of the disagreements about the nature of freedom for important educational and social consequences.