Education Commons^™

The Context For Change: Reconceptualising The 3rs In Education For Indigenous Students, Elizabeth M. Jackson-Barrett

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Abstract

In 2011, three years on from the Apology given by Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd to the Stolen Generations and coupled with the Federal Governments agenda to ‘close the gap’ in education for Aboriginal students, perhaps it is time to retrospectively look at the issues and challenges that have moulded the terrain of Aboriginal education in Western Australia. It is clear that over the last 200 years there has been progress in improving the access of schooling for many Aboriginal students. However the retention and successful completion of compulsory schooling still remain at unacceptable levels. It is these current performance …

Editorial, Gary J Burkholder

Higher Learning Research Communications

We are pleased to publish five essays as part of our co-sponsorship of the MAGIC (Methods, Aesthetics, & Genres in Communication) conference organized by the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (UPES) in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India. This conference was organized by Center for Professional Communication under the aegis of the College of Engineering Studies. The purpose of the conference was to bring together academicians and researchers to deliberate and discuss upon developing communication skills. The emphasis was on empowering the workforce with effective and sustainable communication skills. The conference also supports the efforts of Skill India to help enhance the …

Race To The Top: An Example Of Belief-Dependent Reality. A Response To "Race To The Top Leaves Children And Future Citizens Behind", William J. Mathis

Democracy and Education

Although the federal government claims otherwise, Race to the Top is not research based. Rather, its foundation is in ideology and belief-based realism. The overall effort is fundamentally antiscientific and distracts valuable and needed attention, resources, and focus from the nation's real problems of social, economic, and educational deprivation.

Creating Communities: Working With Refugee Students In Classrooms, Kevin C. Roxas

Democracy and Education

This article critically examines the reality of building community in public schools and specifically identifies the obstacles faced by teachers who try to create community with refugee students. The research in the article focuses on Ms. Patricia Engler, a teacher in a newcomer center for refugee students located in an urban setting. Engler created and fostered a sense of community for middle-school students in her classroom who often felt disconnected to their fellow students, their school, and the neighborhoods in which they lived, and was able to focus on work that she intuitively felt was right for her students based …

The Potential For Deliberative Democratic Civic Education, Jarrod S. Hanson, Ken Howe

Democracy and Education

The values of aggregative democracy have dominated much of civic education as its values reflect the realities of the American political system. We argue that deliberative democratic theory better addresses the moral and epistemological demands of democracy when compared to aggregative democracy. It better attends to protecting citizens’ autonomy to participate in civic life and is able to accommodate the diverse experiences and viewpoints of the American public. We conclude by examining how deliberative democracy provides a new lens on civic education practices. It calls for attention to be given to the process of the exchange of reasons among students …

Imagining No Child Left Behind Freed From Neoliberal Hijackers, Eugene Matusov

Democracy and Education

As a sociocultural educator and scholar, I have always been ambivalent about No Child Left Behind's slogan. I like its democratic ideal of “education without failure,” but I do not like the current educational policies guided by a neoliberal ideology. This article begins a discussion about what a No Student Left Behind educational practice might look like from a sociocultural democratic education perspective.

Race To The Top Leaves Children And Future Citizens Behind: The Devastating Effects Of Centralization, Standardization, And High Stakes Accountability, Joe Onosko

Democracy and Education

President Barack Obama’s Race to the Top (RTT) is a profoundly flawed educational reform plan that increases standardization, centralization, and test-based accountability in our nation’s schools. Following a brief summary of the interest groups supporting the plan, who is currently participating in this race, why so many states voluntarily submitted proposals, and what features of the plan that are most problematic, eight arguments are offered as to why RTT is highly detrimental to our nation.

A Journey, Not A Destination, James L. Phelps

Educational Considerations

Closing Essay: Much of the motivation and ideas for the articles in this special issue originated with my dear friend, Maris Abolins, Professor Emeritus of Physics at Michigan State University. We started as neighbors and, as our kids grew up together, we socialized frequently. He is responsible for my interest in physics. I would read a physics book, which would become the subject of our next dinner conversation (while our wives talked about other, more social topics). Instead of a compilation of facts, physics became a way of thinking about problem solving. The “unified field” theory was the start of …

Serious Education For Serious Christians, Carl E. Zylstra

Pro Rege

This paper is based on the Convocation Address given by Dr. Carl Zylstra at Dordt College on August 27, 2010.

Augmented Reality: An Overview And Five Directions For Ar In Education, Steve Chi-Yin Yuen, Gallayanee Yaoyuneyong, Erik Johnson

Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange (JETDE)

Augmented Reality (AR) is an emerging form of experience in which the Real World (RW) is enhanced by computer-generated content tied to specific locations and/or activities. Over the last several years, AR applications have become portable and widely available on mobile de­vices. AR is becoming visible in our audio-visual media (e.g., news, entertainment, sports) and is beginning to enter other aspects of our lives (e.g., e-commerce, travel, marketing) in tangible and exciting ways. Facilitating ubiquitous learning, AR will give learners instant access to location-specific information compiled and provided by numerous sources (2009). Both the 2010 and 2011 Horizon Reports predict …

The Courage To Critique Policies And Practices From Within: Youth Participatory Action Research As Critical Policy Analysis. A Response To “Buscando La Libertad: Latino Youths In Search Of Freedom In School”, Anjale Welton

Democracy and Education

This response to “Buscando la Libertad: Latino Youths in Search of Freedom in School” by Jason G. Irizarry demonstrates how youth participatory action research (YPAR) as an instrument of subverting oppressive school policies and structures is a form of critical policy analysis (CPA). As an evolving method, CPA acknowledges the absent voices in policy, questions policy inequities, fosters empowerment, and influences policy. Youths who engage in YPAR, as demonstrated by Project FUERTE, have the courage to critique school policies that have the power to alter their educational trajectories, which offers more hope for change than scholarly elites who critique policies …

Confronting Power: Success Isn’T Everything—But It’S Not Nothing Either. A Response To “Beyond The Catch-22 Of School-Based Social Action Programs: Toward A More Pragmatic Approach For Dealing With Power”, Joel Westheimer

Democracy and Education

Fehrman and Schutz contend that the fine balance between having students experience real-world obstacles to social change and having them learn how to navigate around those obstacles can be achieved by having adults both pre-select community action projects that are both possible and meaningful to ensure a modicum of success, and jump in and redirect wayward efforts when necessary to get them back on a trajectory aimed at a positive outcome. I agree. I also suggest that other factors are significant as well, namely the purposeful nurturing of a sense of community and hopefulness. Finally, I point out that adult …

Students Have Their Own Minds. A Response To “Beyond The Catch-22 Of School-Based Social Action Programs: Toward A More Pragmatic Approach For Dealing With Power”, Matthew Goldwasser

Democracy and Education

In response to the authors’ work on finding a more pragmatic approach to dealing with power, this commentary calls into question the possibility of a preestablished agenda by the researchers, who struggled to engage high school students. There might have been a case of overly ambitious expectations at work; also, the authors confess to being in the school only once a week and that their students were themselves struggling to find their place in a new charter school with an emphasis on social action. This response challenges the authors to reexamine their wish to engage students with institutional power by …

Class, Race, And The Discourse Of “College For All.” A Response To “Schooling For Democracy”, Ronald David Glass, Kysa Nygreen

Democracy and Education

We critique the “college for all” discourse by unveiling its relationship to the politics of education, the broader economic and political contexts, and the class and race structures embedded in society and schooling, including higher education. We analyze the current and future labor markets to demonstrate the ways that the “college for all” discourse overstates the need for math and science knowledge and skills within the workforce, and we analyze the debt burdens associated with college attendance and completion to demonstrate that the promised benefits of “college for all” are often illusory for low-income, racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse students. …

Schooling For Democracy: A Common School And A Common University? A Response To “Schooling For Democracy”, Diane Reay

Democracy and Education

This short paper is a response to Nel Noddings’s article on schooling for democracy. Whilst agreeing with the basic premises of Noddings’s argument, it questions the possibility of parity between academic and vocational tracks given the inequitable social and educational contexts the two types of learning would have to coexist within. Drawing on the educational philosophies of John Dewey and R. H. Tawney, I argue that both the United States and the United Kingdom need to create educational systems that reduce the social distance between people rather than, as the current systems do, exacerbate them. This is an issue of …

Democracy And Development: The Role Of Outside-Of-School Experiences In Preparing Young People To Be Active Citizens, Carrie L. Lobman

Democracy and Education

Public schools historically have been the primary institution responsible for preparing young people for participation in a democratic society. However, the almost exclusive focus by today’s schools on knowledge and skills hinders their ability to be environments that support overall development and to produce the kinds of flexible, creative, and critical citizens that are needed to continuously create and recreate democracy. This review of the literature reframes the topic of democracy and education so as to address the relationship between democracy and development specific to youth development. In so doing, it adds practices by and findings from outside-of-school youth development …

Buscando La Libertad: Latino Youths In Search Of Freedom In School, Jason Irizarry

Democracy and Education

Drawing from a two-year ethnographic study of Latino high school students engaged in youth participatory action research (YPAR), this article describes students’ quest for freedom in schools, locating their struggle within a larger effort to realize the democratic ideals of public schooling. Using Latino/a Critical Race Theory as a theoretical lens, the author demonstrates how popular discourse around the “achievement gap” often obscures the oppressive policies and practices implemented by educators that limit freedoms necessary for educational and personal development and profoundly influence the identities and life trajectories of Latino youth. The article concludes with an exploration of YPAR as …

Beyond The Catch-22 Of School-Based Social Action Programs: Toward A More Pragmatic Approach For Dealing With Power, Darwyn Fehrman, Aaron Schutz

Democracy and Education

This study examines a two-year effort to engage groups of inner-city students in community engagement projects at Social Action Charter High School, SACHS, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In this project, graduate student volunteers coached small groups of students working on community change projects, collecting data on what happened over time. Kahne and Westheimer (2006) identified a key challenge to projects of this kind. On the one hand, social action projects seem able to enhance students’ belief in their own capacity to solve community problems only if adult allies make sure the students do not encounter any significant barriers to success, although …

Meaningful Hope For Teachers In Times Of High Anxiety And Low Morale, Carrie Nolan, Sarah Marie Stitzlein

Democracy and Education

Many teachers struggle to maintain or build hope among themselves and their students in today’s climate of high anxiety and low morale. This article describes and responds to those challenging conditions. It offers teachers and scholars of education a philosophically sophisticated and feasible understanding of hope. This notion of hope is grounded in pragmatism and grows out of the pragmatist commitment to meliorism. Hope is described as a way of living tied to specific contexts that brings together reflection and intelligent action alongside imagination and gratitude. Such hope is realistic and generative, rendering it well suited for teachers struggling in …

Schooling For Democracy, Nel Noddings

Democracy and Education

There is a widespread movement today to prepare all students for college, and it is promoted in the name of democracy. I argue here that such a move actually puts our democracy at risk by forcing students into programs that do not interest them and depriving them of courses at which they might succeed. We risk losing the vision of democracy that respects every form of honest work and cultivates a deep appreciation of interdependence.

Transforming Undergraduate And Graduate Candidate Social Perceptions About Diverse Learners Through Critical Reflection, Tonnie Martinez, Janet Penner-Williams, Socorro Herrera, Diane Rodriguez

Educational Considerations

Each preservice or inservice teacher who faces the prospect of student diversity in clinical experiences or practice settings does so with an individual set of assumptions about cultures and languages that differ from his or her own. Mezirow (1991) maintained that reflections on such assumptions and presuppositions about oneself and others can lead to “transformative learning”; or “learning that transforms problematic frames of reference."

Promoting Diversity Through Multilevel Activism: An Organizational Approach, Patricia Alvarez Mchatton, Barbara J. Shircliffe, Deirde Cobb-Roberts

Educational Considerations

The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) was founded in 1954 to serve as an independent body in promoting high quality teacher preparation programs.

From Compliance To Engagement: Lessons Learned From Applying A Transformational Approach To Ncate Standard 4-Diversity, Robert Shockley, John Hardman, Eliah Watlington, Patricia Heydet-Kirsch

Educational Considerations

In March 2007, Florida Atlantic University hosted a joint NCATE/Florida Department of Education site visit. This successful site visit and following Unit Accreditation Board report resulted in full NCATE accreditation with only one weakness cited.

An Ncate-Approved School Of Education Self-Study On Diversity: Faculty And Student Perceptions, Susan R. Warren, Maria A. Pacino, Tami Foy, Torria Bond

Educational Considerations

Accreditation bodies for institutions of higher education like the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) require colleges and universities to create campus climates and experiences for students that foster diversity.

Diversity: Its Essential Importance To Ncate Accreditation, Jeff Zacharakis, Joelyn K. Foy

Educational Considerations

This issue of Educational Considerations focuses on the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) Standard 4 - Diversity. It is not without merit that our teacher preparation institutions are held to a diversity standard by the most prominent accrediting agency.

Administrative Strategies For Preparing Teaching Candidates To Be Building-Level Technology Change Agents, Richard Rose

Administrative Issues Journal

Teacher education graduates in their early years of service are ill-prepared to act as building-level change agents who can advocate for the enhanced use of technology in the classroom. In this study, a group of experienced teachers seeking the M.Ed. in Educational Technology suggest that the lack of confidence which new teachers show in relation to technology can be traced back to the absence of rigorous technical skill-building in both their Introduction to Educational Technology class and methods classes. These tech-savvy mid-career teachers then identify obstacles to enhancing pre-service teacher education programs with more effective preparation in teaching with technology …

Welcome, Patricia R. Renick Ph.D.

Electronic Journal for Inclusive Education

Welcome to the Winter/Spring edition of The Electronic Journal for Inclusive Education. This particular edition has a very real international dialogue concerning the inclusion of students with special needs in general education classrooms.

Dr. Tsafi Timor provide a thought provoking discussion and analysis of two approaches to classroom management. This article starts with a great quote from Dr. Harry Wong.

Syed Salma Jameel provides a new perspective concerning students with special needs enrolled in colleges and universities. This article links employability with the need for higher education and highlights the issues of including students with special needs in higher education. …

Teachers' Beliefs And Practices Observed In Inclusive Classes, Gyagenda Khamis

Electronic Journal for Inclusive Education

The world over there is a wave towards more inclusive education for children who are disadvantaged in one-way or another. The Salamanca conference of 1994 focused on the child with Special Education Needs (SEN) with a call to governments to ensure that such children were given an appropriate education especially by being included in mainstream classes. Developing countries shows less initiative and effort towards including the child with SEN, with more efforts towards including the girl child. But some schools are implementing the policy on their own initiative. It can be assumed that their belief in inclusive education drive their …

Preservice Teachers' Confidence Levels In Working With Students With Special Needs: Improving Preservice Teacher Training Programs, Woo Jung Ph.D., Grace Cho Ph.D., Debra Ambrosetti Ph.D.

Electronic Journal for Inclusive Education

Teacher confidence levels have been shown to increase with training, exposure to specific situations, knowledge, and utilization of interventions. The purpose of this study was to investigate preservice teachers’ confidence levels in teaching students with special needs. The 287 participants were from three separate education departments within a college of education. The results indicated that students working toward a teaching credential in the field of special education reported higher confidence levels than did those seeking a credential in secondary and elementary education. In addition, secondary teacher candidates reported higher confidence levels than did elementary teacher candidates. Based on the findings, …

Paraeducators Perceptions Of Their Roles In Inclusive Classrooms: A National Study Of Paraeducators, Ida M. Malian Ph.D.

Electronic Journal for Inclusive Education

With increased mandates for providing FAPE, districts are employing paraprofessionals-specifically paraeducators to assist in special education as well as inclusive classrooms. A National Survey was conducted to ascertain paraeducators perceptions regarding their roles with inclusive classes, collaboration with general and special education teachers, responsibilities within the classroom regarding instruction and other management of the daily routines, their beliefs about teaching and training needs. Respondent included 202 paraprofessionals from 34 states with varying degrees of experience and training. Overall, paraprofessionals were positive about their roles in the classroom ad the impact of their work with students with disabilities. More time for …