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This paper argues that many pedagogical reform efforts falter because they fail to consider the cultural context of teacher and student behavior. Little guidance exists on how to adapt teaching practices to be compatible with culturally influenced behaviors and beliefs. We present evidence from three studies conducted as part of a large basic education program in Tanzania showing that some teaching activities are less effective or not well implemented because of culturally influenced behaviors in the classroom, namely children's lack of confidence to speak up in class; a commitment to togetherness, fairness, and cooperation; avoidance of embarrassment; and age-graded authority. We propose ways teaching activities can be adapted to take these behaviors into account while still adhering to fundamental principles of effective learning, including student participation in their own learning, teaching at the right level, and monitoring students as a basis for adjusting instruction. Such adaptations may be made most effective by engaging teachers in co-creation of teaching activities.

The digital transition in educational testing has introduced many new opportunities for technology to enhance large-scale assessments. These include the potential to collect and use log data on test-taker response processes routinely, and on a large scale. Process data has long been recognised as a valuable source of validation evidence in assessments. However, it is now being used for multiple purposes across the assessment cycle. Process data is being deliberately captured and used in large-scale, standardized assessments -- moving from viewing it as a "by-product" of digital assessment, to its use "by design" to extend understanding of test-taker performance and engagement. While these techniques offer significant benefits, they also require appropriate validation practices to ensure that their use supports reliable inferences and do not introduce unintended negative consequences.

This occasional paper is the fourth in a series on the National Quality Framework (NQF). This paper offers detailed insights into education and care service quality ratings for Quality Area 3 (physical environment) of the National Quality Standard (NQS). The focus is on ensuring the physical environment of a service is safe, suitable and provides a rich and diverse range of experiences that promote children's learning and development. This paper begins with an overview of the physical environment standards and what these aim to achieve, highlighting contemporary research and theory behind sustainable environments promoting children's learning. It then outlines the operational requirements of the National Law and National Regulations for the physical environment, with a particular focus on the requirements specific to different service types. The paper also describes how service approval requirements in the National Law apply to the physical environment, and how providers may seek waivers for certain legislated requirements. The paper is intended to be of interest to people who deliver education and care services, families, people who provide training and professional development services to the sector, and to officers in the state and territory regulatory authorities that regulate education and care services.

Students need to develop a variety of critical thinking and interpersonal skills in order to contribute successfully to today's increasingly globalized world. The Office of the Provost at the University of Michigan has implemented a plan known as Transforming Learning for a Third Century (TLTC) as part of its broader Third Century Initiative. This plan aims to foster development of such skills, with special emphasis on five distinct learning goals: (1) Creativity; (2) Intercultural engagement; (3) Social/civic responsibility and ethical reasoning; (4) Communication, collaboration, and teamwork; and (5) Self-agency, and the ability to innovate and take risks. The intercultural engagement goal is focused on fostering students' understanding of the role of values and culture in driving decisions, and supporting students as they develop the flexibility to work with others who have different values. More so than any previous generation, it is important for the University of Michigan to offer students opportunities to practice communicating and working with others from many different cultures and background experiences in intelligent, productive, and respectful ways. Aligned with previous TLTC Occasional Papers, this paper begins with a discussion of what intercultural engagement means and how it is conceptualized in the literature, followed by a discussion of the importance of this goal for student development. A summary of different approaches to promote intercultural engagement will then be offered. This paper concludes with an examination of how to assess these skills with an emphasis on choosing appropriate measures.

Students need to develop a variety of critical thinking and interpersonal skills in order to contribute successfully to today's increasingly globalized world. The Office of the Provost at the University of Michigan has implemented a plan known as Transforming Learning for a Third Century (TLTC) as part of its broader Third Century Initiative. This plan aims to foster development of such skills, with special emphasis on five distinct learning goals: (1) creativity; (2) intercultural engagement; (3) social/civic responsibility and ethical reasoning; (4) communication, collaboration and teamwork; and (5) self-agency, and the ability to innovate and take risks. The TLTC learning goal, Creativity, focuses on developing educational opportunities to foster students' creative processes and capacities to create new works and ideas. This goal also seeks to promote an understanding that creativity is not a rare gift to the few, but a fundamental human trait that can be developed and expanded. This paper begins with a review of the various ways in which creativity has been conceptualized and a discussion of the importance of creativity. It then goes on to briefly summarize different approaches to fostering creativity among students and ends with a discussion on how to assess creativity, with an emphasis on choosing appropriate measures.

University of Michigan (U-M) students visit community-based organizations in Detroit on a weekly basis to work on projects aimed at improving the well being of children and their families, such as tutoring youth in after school programs. Their site visits are supplemented by relevant readings, class discussions and written reflections on topics such as developmental psychology, poverty, and education, which connect what they are learning in class to what they experience in the field. U-M students with social identities that have historically experienced conflict and differential status come together to engage in critical self-reflection and purposeful dialogue to better understand each other's point of view and solve problems regarding race relations. Using case studies, U-M students learn about the multiple and often competing viewpoints of stakeholders in land management. They attend a local planning commission meeting and reflect on the economic, scientific, and moral implications of various land use proposals.

The digital transformation of our societies is moving ahead, changing the way that we work and interact. It is also changing learning environments and the need for digital skills. This paper argues for a differentiated approach by universities to digital skills, identifying three groups of learners: (1) ICT [Information and Communication Technologies] specialists who need training in ethics (including privacy and bias) and where universities need to ensure diversity, (2) learners who will enter fields where the professional practice is already disrupted by digital technologies, for example medicine and law, and (3) learners who face unpredictability in how digital technologies will impact their careers, but who still require knowledge about them. These groups will have different needs, as will individuals within the groups. This paper offers suggestions on adapting learning environments to meet these needs. These include the use of problem-based learning that will enable universities to provide exposure to digital technology, as well as using interdisciplinary teams and learning analytics as a way to predict and adapt to individual learning needs.

What happens when standards, teaching for understanding, research based strategies for improving student achievement, and teacher inquiry become a whole? Power Teaching results. A prototype in development at an urban, elementary school in the South, power teaching connects the dots of state standards, Harvard Project Zero's teaching for understanding framework, Marzano's research based strategies, and teacher inquiry for reflective practice. From a systems perspective, the four factors of power teaching will one day yield emergent properties different from the factors. The whole is not only greater than its parts, it has emergent properties that differ from the parts: the taste and texture of cake differs from the eggs, milk, butter, and flour in the parts. In addition to providing an extended definition of power teaching, this paper suggests that Howard Gardner's recent work--five minds for the future--might be emergent properties of the prototype. Image schools that not only have students passing high stakes tests, but developing disciplined minds, synthesizing minds, creating minds, respectful minds, and ethical minds. Such students would be better prepared to meet the complex issues rising from an interconnected world. The paper includes a 65 item annotated bibliography.

Although universities often teach ethics courses, they do not always teach students how to apply ethical course content to ethical dilemmas they encounter on a day-to-day basis. The Awareness-Investigation-Responding (AIR) model of ethical inquiry bridges this gap by scaffolding the reflective process and empowering students to make more caring, compassionate, ethical choices in their disciplines and in life. AIR can be adapted to any discipline and any learning environment.

In this paper Peter Moss, a Professor of Early Childhood Provision at the University of London, challenges the hegemony of the market model in early childhood education and care. He shows how the market model embodies the values of neoliberalism and, drawing on the work of the Brazilian social theorist Roberto Unger, discusses "democratic experimentalism" as an alternative. The paper's aim is not to prove that one is superior or that these are the only two models available; rather, it is to show that alternatives to the market model exist, and that the questions raised by ECEC (early childhood education and care) are therefore ethical and political rather than merely technical. A bibliography is included. (Contains 17 footnotes.)

This paper aims to provide an overview of evidence of schools' engagement in Fairtrade in the UK through the Fairtrade Foundation's Fairtrade School Awards programme. The paper provides a summary of the comments from schools' engagement with the programme based on data from teachers and pupils' learning with evidence from the different levels of the award. The paper also aims to locate the evidence from the award programme within the broader landscape of global learning in the UK. [This report was produced in partnership with the Fairtrade Foundation.]

The release of the "Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research 2007" by the Australian Government in 2007 was welcomed by Go8 (Group of Eight) institutions, particularly in relation to the improvements and broader scope of the matters covered by Part A of that Code. However, as foreshadowed by the Go8 during the consultation phase of the preparation of the Code, significant risks to researchers and institutions arise from Part B of the Code, especially as a result of the unavoidable confluence of considerations relating to allegations of research misconduct and the terms of employment of university staff. The Go8 has engaged in a very constructive dialogue with the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) about these issues. This consultation paper has been prepared in response to the NHMRC's written confirmation of January 2008 that Part B of the Code is intended as: (1) "a guide to good practice" only; and (2) "a principles-based approach, rather than being prescriptive." The purpose of this consultation paper is to set out the principles upon which Go8 responses to the Code will be based. Once these principles have been agreed by Go8 institutions this paper will be provided to the NHMRC. It is hoped that the NHMRC's endorsement of the proposed approach will be forthcoming--allowing institutions to move to implementation of the Code and participation in enterprise bargaining processes with certainty. Through adoption of such guiding principles, the expectation is that Go8 universities will eventually have in place arrangements for handling allegations of research misconduct, which while responsive to particular requirements of each institution and State, will be broadly consistent and readily understood by university staff, students, government agencies and the wider community. Appended are: (1) Background discussion about issues arising from Part B of the Code; (2) Go8 & NHMRC correspondence over the Code. (Contains 1 footnote.)

It is important to understand how students' changing belief structures influence their values and behaviors, including their ethical beliefs and decision-making patterns. As such, this study will address the following research questions: 1) what are students' ethical beliefs and their perceptions of students' ethical behaviors; and 2) how do students' personal values and perceptions of behaviors differ? Using data from the 2006 University of California Undergraduate Experience Survey, survey items about ethical decisions are grouped according to their association with the following themes: academic integrity and honesty, social activities, and behaviors influenced by perceptions of convenience. When analyzing student responses to the UCLA wildcard module within UCUES [University of California Undergraduate Experience Survey] with these thematic constructs, it is possible to identify patterns of personal ethical belief, perceptions of ethics among peers, and differences between these two classes of variables. Our research indicates that students' perceptions of their peers' beliefs and behaviors are the best predictors of the respondents' own ethical behavior. Within academia, particularly in subject areas that engender greater competition such as science and engineering, it is important that institutions promote an explicit code of conduct. If students are taking cues from their peers as to the what beliefs and behaviors are appropriate, a strong message from the institution, the faculty, and staff can intervene in this process in order to promote ethical decision making skills and practices. (Contains 3 figures and 3 tables.)