Education Commons^™

Time For A Paradigm Shift In School Education?, Geoff N. Masters

Occasional Essays

The thesis of this essay is that the schooling paradigm is in need of review and that the answer may lie in a shift in how we think about teaching and learning. Under the prevailing paradigm, the role of teachers is to deliver the year-level curriculum to all students in a year level. This mismatch has unfortunate consequences for both teaching and learning. Currently, many students are not ready for their year-level curriculum because they lack prerequisite knowledge, skills and understandings. The basis for an alternative paradigm and a 'new normal' is presented. The essay addresses concerns raised about changes …

Investigating Teacher And Administrator Response To A Care-Based Curriculum Implementation, Piera Camposeo

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This study investigated participants’ openness to change when exposed to a teacher-led care-based innovative method of curriculum delivery, specifically the Schoolhome Instructional Design.

Reclaiming The Promise Of Place: An Interview With David Greenwood, Roberta Altman

Occasional Paper Series

David Greenwood (formerly Gruenewald) is a Canada research chair in environmental education at Lakehead University, where he also directs the Centre for Place and Sustainability Studies. He has published widely on critical place-based, environmental, and sustainability education. His current interests are to continue to make connections between the big ideas of place and sustainability and other big ideas and experiences in the arts, mindfulness, embodiment, and being in the world.

How Do Youth And Adults At A Rural High School Conceptualize The Role Of Student? An Investigation Of The Student Role Identity Standard At The Intersection Of Student And Teacher Perspectives, Joseph M. Zenisek

Dissertations and Theses

Over the past decade, engaging student voice has emerged as an approach to increasing meaningful student involvement in schools towards meeting adolescents' developmental needs for agency, efficacy, and sense of belonging. Central to student voice work is the re-creation of student-teacher and student-organization relationships, generating student identity roles that are fundamentally different from the roles traditionally allocated to students. Conventional concepts of student roles by both adults and youth can act as barriers to increasing student voice. The goal of this study was to develop a better understanding of student role identity. Applying a critical ethnography approach in the context …

Knowing The Indigenous Leadership Journey: Indigenous People Need The Academic System As Much As The Academic System Needs Native People, Dawn Elizabeth Hardison-Stevens

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation explores the research question, “How can we create the best learning environments for Indigenous students through good leadership at all levels?” A bridge between cultures provides learning opportunities toward academic success between Indigenous students, families, leaders, and communities. Through personal experience as a practitioner, professional, and education, my research examines and identifies results from personnel and students at five schools, tribal and public, their tribal communities, and two Indigenous people in high profile leadership positions indicating an educational philosophy recognizing Indigenous people need the academic system as much as the academic system needs Native people. Portraits and interviews …

Turbulence, Perturbance, And Educational Change, Brian R. Beabout

Educational Leadership, Counseling, and Foundations

While scholarship on educational change has long accepted that disruptions to the status quo are an essential part of the change process, disruption has never been more central to planned change than it is in the current political context in the USA, where legislation has mandated school closure, reconstitution, and turnaround as required remedies for schools failing to produce annual student achievement gains required by government. We are also unfortunately hampered by the imprecise language that surrounds complexity- based theories of educational change. Words such as perturbance, turbulence, and disruption all have gained currency lately, but meanings are unclear and …

Turbulence, Perturbance, And Educational Change, Brian Beabout

Brian R. Beabout

While scholarship on educational change has long accepted that disruptions to the status quo are an essential part of the change process, disruption has never been more central to planned change than it is in the current political context in the USA, where legislation has mandated school closure, reconstitution, and turnaround as required remedies for schools failing to produce annual student achievement gains required by government. We are also unfortunately hampered by the imprecise language that surrounds complexity- based theories of educational change. Words such as perturbance, turbulence, and disruption all have gained currency lately, but meanings are unclear and …

General Education: Why Do We Need It, And Where Did It Come From?, Calvin Jongsma

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

General education is one of those things that everyone knows how to fix but no one is able to do anything about. Woodrow Wilson’s comment about changing the college curriculum, made while he was president of Princeton University, is particularly apt of general education: reforming it “is as difficult as moving a graveyard.” Committees can study the issue for ages and make numerous erudite reports, but when all is said and done, more is said than done. Many reforms meet the standard voiced by Groucho Marx: “there is less here than meets the eye.” It is far easier to resist …

The Illinois Mathematics And Science Academy: A Case Study Of The Creation Of An Organizational Culture, Constance Hatcher

IMSA History

The study examined the creation of an organizational culture at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy. The study focused on the concept of change and the effects of change on the organization and the organizational participants since the creation of the Academy in 1985. Changes in the structure and management of the Academy provided the basis for participant response.

The Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy is a public, three-year, residential school for students from the State of Illinois who are highly gifted in mathematics and science. Selected students enter having completed the ninth grade. The rigorous comprehensive curriculum, with strong …

American Public School Ideologies: A Need For Reform?, Sharon A. Raver

Communication Disorders & Special Education Faculty Publications

Historically, American education has been based on the democratic ideologies that education will provide equality of opportunity and enhance economic benefits. However, public education has not been very successful in achieving these goals. Because of this, disillusionment has grown and alternatives to monopoly public education, such as vouchers and tax credit plans, have been offered. Criticism and analyses directed toward these new options for public schooling are discussed. Effects they could have on public education, expected and unexpected, are addresses. It appears that public education is at a critical discussion point in its ideological history. Some of the choices facing …