The best of middle school teaching is "learning by doing" and is interdisciplinary. This book ties it all together and offers a complete, innovative program, from vision, through planning, implementation, and assessment. The program is accomplished through the collaboration of the school library media specialist and the language arts teacher. Senator outlines ways in which they can collaboratively plan, teach, and assess units which use language arts as tools. She includes specific instructional programs, suggestions for staff development, examples of questions, organizers, and units for grades six through eight, ideas for creating schedules, and methods of working together to develop materials for instruction. This program reflects the restructuring movement in American education. It emphasizes process as well as content, uses authentic material, and stresses interdisciplinary learning and learning by doing. The first part deals with literature as a subject and offers many practical units for the library media specialist and the language arts teacher to use in collaboratively teaching students inquiry and a framework for literature. Armed with these tools, students are able to read, discuss, think, and write about more challenging and interesting literature. Senator offers many ideas for "extending" literature through creative dramatics, storytelling, booktalks, and book shares. The second half of the book shows how to plan interdisciplinary units so that students, through resource-based learning, may learn to use new technologies and information problem-solving. The work also includes some units for elementary and secondary schools. Because of its innovative methods and practicalideas it will be a boon to library media specialists, language arts and English teachers, reading specialists, and library schools and undergraduate and graduate schools of education.

Is there an 'ideal' primary school curriculum? Who should decide what the curriculum is? Should teachers have autonomy over how they teach? The curriculum is the heart of what teachers teach and learners learn: effective teaching is only possible with an effective curriculum. Yet in spite of its importance, there has been a crisis in curriculum that has been caused in large part by governments assuming direct control over the curriculum, assessment, and increasingly, pedagogy. Creating the Curriculum tackles this thorny issue head on, challenging student and practising primary school teachers to think critically about past and present issues and to engage with a new wave of curriculum thinking and development. Considering curriculum construction and its impact on teaching and learning in the four countries of the UK, key issues considered include: who should decide the curriculum, its aims and its values the extent to which issues in primary education swing back and forth Subjects versus thematic organisation, stages and phases, progression, breadth and balance prescription versus teacher autonomy the key features of effective classroom practice strategies for assessing the whole curriculum how language in the classroom influences curriculum design understanding curricula in the context of children's social and personal circumstances creativity, curriculum and the classroom. Illustrated throughout with strategies and case studies from the classroom, Creating the Curriculum accessibly links the latest research and evidence with concrete examples of good practice. It is a timely exploration of what makes an effective and meanginful curriculum and how teachers can bring new relevance, motivation and powerful values to what they teach.

This book examines teacher agency in implementing English as a Foreign Language (EFL) curriculum reform in the Chinese university context. It theorizes the concept of teacher agency from a sociocultural theory perspective and draws on a study conducted in a conservative and less developed area in China. The book uses Engestroem's activity theory and Vygotsky's concept of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) to understand the nature and extent of teacher agency in adapting one's teaching with respect to beliefs, knowledge and instructional practices. The study concludes that curriculum reform in China needs to shift from reliance on 'top-down' policies to 'bottom-up' implementation that mobilizes local understandings and practices. One of the implications of this study is that transformative teacher education programs aimed at developing teacher pedagogical agency require that teachers have ongoing opportunities to design, develop and evaluate curriculum-based mediational means.

It is widely recognised that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses the media to set the agenda for political discourse, propagate official policies, monitor public opinion, and rally regime support. State agencies in China control the full spectrum of media programming, either through ownership or the power to regulate. Political Communication in China examines the two factors which have contributed to the rapid development of media infrastructure in China: technology and commercialization. Economic development led to technological advancement, which in turn brought about the rapid modernization of all forms of communication, from 'old' media such as television to the Internet, cell phones, and satellite communications. This volume examines how these recent developments have affected the relationship between the CCP and the mass media as well as the implications of this evolving relationship for understanding Chinese citizens' media use, political attitudes, and behaviour. The chapters in this book represent a diverse range of research methods, from surveys, content analysis, and field interviews to the manipulation of aggregate statistical data. The result is a lively debate which creates many opportunities for future research into the fundamental question of convergence between political and media regimes. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal Political Communication.

Barry M. Franklin's new work uses the concept of community as a lens for interpreting urban school reform since 1960. Focusing on the curriculum and employing case studies, he applies the concept to reform initiatives in a number of city school systems. Included are compensatory education, community control, mayoral takeovers, educational partnerships, and smaller learning communities. This comprehensive work concludes with a consideration of how we can employ the concept of cosmopolitanism to change the idea of community for a twenty-first century, globalized world and its schools.

With the increasing interdependence and harmonization of educational systems and achievement expectations, the necessity to cooperate across national borders and differences is becoming more evident. A serious problem that has not received sufficient attention arises from different concepts of the planning and implementation of teaching. Two basic models predominate internationally: the Anglo-Saxon tradition of curriculum and the Continental European tradition of Didaktik. Didaktik and/or Curriculum presents core issues of an international dialogue aiming at a comparative analysis of both traditions as an indispensable precondition for mutual understanding and successful cooperation. Contents: Bjorg B. Gundem/Stefan Hopmann: Introduction: Didaktik Meets Curriculum--William A. Reid: Systems and Structures or Myths and Fables? A Cross-Cultural Perspective on Curriculum Content--Rudolf Kunzli: The Common Frame and the Places of Didaktik--Ian Westbury: Didaktik and Curriculum Studies--David Hamilton: Didaktik, Deliberation, Reflection (In Search of the Commonplaces)--O. L. Davis, Jr.: The Theoretic Meets the Practical: The Practical Wins-Ewald Terhart: Changing Concepts of Curriculum: From « Bildung to « Learning to « Experience Developments in (West)Germany from the 1960s to 1990--Erik Wallin: Changing Paradigms of Curriculum and/or Didaktik?--Ulf P. Lundgren: The Making of Curriculum Making: Reflections on Educational Research and the Use of Educational Research--M. Frances Klein: Approaches to Curriculum Development in the United States--Carlo Jenzer: Dealing with Change: The Making of Curriculum Making--Lars Lovlie: Paradoxes of Educational Reform: The Case of Norwayin the 1990s--Tomas Englund: Teaching as an Offer of (Discursive?) Meaning--Peter Menck: The Formation of Conscience: A Lost Topic of Didaktik--Erling Lars Dale: The Essence of Teaching--William F. Pinar/William M. Reynolds/Patrick Slattery/Peter M. Taubman: Understanding Curriculum: A Postscript for the Next Generation--Wolfgang Klafki: Characteristics of Critical-Constructive Didaktik--Stefan Hopmann/Bjorg B. Gundem: Conclusion--Didaktik Meets Curriculum: Towards a New Agenda.

Two decades have now passed since the revolutions of 1989 swept through Eastern Europe and precipitated the collapse of state socialism across the region, engendering a period of massive social, economic and political transformation. This book explores the ways in which young people growing up in post-socialist Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union negotiate a range of identities and transitions in their personal lives against a backdrop of thoroughgoing transformation in their societies. Drawing upon original empirical research in a range of countries, the book's contributors explore the various freedoms and insecurities that have accompanied neo-liberal transformation in post-socialist countries - in spheres as diverse as consumption, migration, political participation, volunteering, employment and family formation - and examine the ways in which they have begun to re-shape different aspects of young people's lives. In addition, while 'social change' is a central theme of the issue, all of the chapters in the collection indicate that the new opportunities and risks faced by young people continue both to underpin and to be shaped by familiar social and spatial divisions, not only within and between the countries addressed, but also between 'East' and 'West'. This book was originally published as a special issue of Journal of Youth Studies.

The Classical Hollywood Reader brings together essential readings to provide a history of Hollywood from the 1910s to the mid 1960s. Following on from a Prologue that discusses the aesthetic characteristics of Classical Hollywood films, Part 1 covers the period between the 1910s and the mid-to-late 1920s. It deals with the advent of feature-length films in the US and the growing national and international dominance of the companies responsible for their production, distribution and exhibition. In doing so, it also deals with film making practices, aspects of style, the changing roles played by women in an increasingly business-oriented environment, and the different audiences in the US for which Hollywood sought to cater. Part 2 covers the period between the coming of sound in the mid 1920s and the beginnings of the demise of the `studio system` in late 1940s. In doing so it deals with the impact of sound on films and film production in the US and Europe, the subsequent impact of the Depression and World War II on the industry and its audiences, the growth of unions, and the roles played by production managers and film stars at the height of the studio era. Part 3 deals with aspects of style, censorship, technology, and film production. It includes articles on the Production Code, music and sound, cinematography, and the often neglected topic of animation. Part 4 covers the period between 1946 and 1966. It deals with the demise of the studio system and the advent of independent production. In an era of demographic and social change, it looks at the growth of drive-in theatres, the impact of television, the advent of new technologies, the increasing importance of international markets, the Hollywood blacklist, the rise in art house imports and in overseas production, and the eventual demise of the Production Code. Designed especially for courses on Hollywood Cinema, the Reader includes a number of newly researched and written chapters and a series of introductions to each of its parts. It concludes with an epilogue, a list of resources for further research, and an extensive bibliography.

Mission Statement: The mission of the series is to provide an integrated view of current knowledge within the various areas of early childhood education. Each volume in the series will present a scholarly, but accessible review of research and theory related to some aspect of early childhood education. The topics to be covered in each volume will be determined by which aspects of the field are considered particularly important at the time of its development as well as which are particularly generative in relation to current research and theory.

This collection of papers surveys key aspects of the curriculum, investigates the present situation and discusses what improvements need to be made. It is contributed by teachers, educational advisers and researchers and ranges across a variety of different institutional teaching settings and a variety of different subject areas. The approach is empirical rather than theoretical and the book is divided into three sections covering content, methods and evaluation.

This book reappraises the British and American experience in curriculum studies, the curious way in which it has been dominated by certain ideas and introduces the reader to alternative ways of perceiving, defining and approaching its problems. It provides a radical critique of the whole area, presenting both Marxist and phenomenological perspectives on the current dilemmas that teachers face. The book argues that in order to understand the problems teachers face in coping with the curriculum, we must look at the situation from the point of view of the individual rather than prescribing a norm for all teachers. The dynamic relationship between the individual and the collective and the teacher and the state is one of the fundamental issues in solving the present problems in curriculum studies. The book focuses on this central problem and suggests a variety of ways in which new solutions may be found.

Originally written after four years of the National Curriculum, at a time when adjustments and radical changes were being implemented, this book analyses from various points of view what is wrong with the National Curriculum and presents a series of options for putting it right.

This book demonstrates how it is possible to value, respect and utilise cultural diversity and yet achieve a good education' for all. The authors contend that few issues in education can be examined in isolation from the world outside. This must surely apply to the question of cultural, social and economic differences among children, and this book continually emphasises the importance of a healthy social climate as well as mastery of language, literacy and numeracy. The book examines different teaching procedures and advises on curriculum construction and content, especially the relationships between the teaching and learning of language and teaching and learning in a language. In short, the authors have examined the why, the what and the how of schooling to accommodate educational diversity and have suggested an approach that is constructive and stimulating rather than simply therapeutic.

When first published this book was one of the first collections of empirical research in the area of the knowledge transmitted in schools and the responses of students to it. It includes studies of the histories of particular school subjects and of how the knowledge they embody is presented in the classroom. Attention is also given to the effects of gender stereotypes among teachers and pupils, both on pupils' selection of courses to study and on their reactions to particular subjects in the classroom. The other major topic in this collection is the way external examinations shape the nature of the school curriculum and how it is taught. There are studies of how pupils and teachers adapt to the exam system, and of how that system and its role in the accountability of schools, have changed in recent years. The articles collected here throw into relief important aspects of what is taught in schools, and they do this on the basis of a solid foundation of empirical research.

This book explores some of the major processes involved in the definition of school subject knowledge. Using historical ethnographic methods, the contributors to the collection highlight and examine some of the factors involved at national, institutional and classroom levels in the making of school subjects. The first section of the book outlines the theoretical and methodological basis for the study off school subjects, and the reasons for and the possibilities of such a study are considered. In the second section some histories of school curricula are presented from a variety of settings -- colonial schools in Africa, working-class schools of the nineteenth century, nursery schools -- and the conflicting forces of determination and change in school subjects are identified and examined. The third section focuses on the contemporary school situation and the papers isolate and investigate some of the interest groups and social processes which enter into or affect the realization of school knowledge in the classroom.

This book deals with curriculum issues and problems, and one of its aims is to help practising teachers to clarify their own theory and practice in relation to the curriculum. The contributors look at three popular theories or sets of assumptions held by teachers: the child-centred view of education; the subject-centred or knowledge-centred view; and the society-centred view. Each of these views is incomplete on its own, but each has something to contribute in planning a curriculum as a whole, and the authors emphasize that a comprehensive theory of curriculum planning would take into account the individual nature of the pupil and also recognize the social value of education. This kind of comprehensive curriculum planning has been described as the situation-centred curriculum, based on the idea that schools should be concerned with preparing the young for the world as it will be when they leave school. One of the purposes of education is to develop a child's autonomy; he or she must learn to cope with the variety of situations which will face him or her in society. Thus many different approaches must be employed in establishing a basis for the complex task of curriculum planning. The book draws on the disciplines of philosophy, psychology, history and sociology to suggest new approaches to curriculum objectives and evaluation. It considers the theoretical bases of curriculum models, practical issues of planning, evaluation and pedagogy and discusses some urgent contemporary questions about the politics and control of the curriculum.

Teachers are, and always have been seen as agents of respectability in our society, but today this role is far less easily defined than it once was. Now, for most teachers, the whats and hows of moral behaviour, guidance and instruction have become debatable issues. In this book the author gives us a readable and original sociological consideration of the teaching oughts' and ought-nots' which, by providing a valuable analytic framework within which to view moral education, should help the thinking of those who are concerned with some of the most intractable problems of contemporary education.

Written prior to the introduction of the national curriculum, this volume argued for precisely that: a broad framework of a compulsory education at national level for all schools. The author considers the question of the content of his proposed compulsory curriculum in terms of principles derived from a fundamental ethical position and from an analysis of kinds of human activity that seeks to establish important educational priorities. The discussion covers arguments concerning intrinsically worthwhile activities, the need for a practical component of the curriculum and the priority that humanistic studies should have. It puts forward a case for a new concept of voluntary education, partly on the model of the Pioneer organizations of Eastern Europe, to supplement the compulsory curriculum.

One of the educationist's major concerns today is to find effective ways of translating new goals for the curriculum into classroom practices. American and British contributions analyse curriculum change as it actually occurs, with people, institutions and constraints of time and money acknowledged and accepted as a necessary and rightful part of the whole process. Detailed accounts are given of curriculum change in a wide variety of settings: American and English school systems, a college of education, an art curriculum project, Scottish classrooms. Analytic perspectives are employed that help to clarify the underlying forces at work. The contributors probe the adequacy of current theorizing about curriculum development, and suggest new ways of thinking about the problems involved in bringing about change.

Mini-set B: Curriculum Theory re-issues 15 volumes originally published between 1973 and 1993 and covers curriculum theory, changes in curricula and the politics and sociology of the school curriculum.

In recent years, the rampant development of worldwide communications and powerful modern technologies has reformulated the idea of distance learning and the transmission of higher education content. Combined with these new developments and the outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an apparent need for a thorough discussion on all features of e-learning. Online Distance Learning Course Design and Multimedia in E-Learning disseminates research, experiences, and philosophies surrounding innovation within higher education online teaching and learning environments. It includes case studies of relevant and fruitful applications, practical challenges, and examinations of the most recent innovations. Covering topics such as online management education, student engagement, and gamification, this book is an essential resource for academicians, researchers, educators, pre-service educators, principals, administrators, consultants, instructional designers, technologists, computer scientists, and policymakers.

Placing Students at the Heart of Creative Learning shows teachers of key stages 2 and 3 how to introduce creativity into what is often seen as a prescriptive and stifling curriculum, and addresses the tensions that can exist between the requirement to follow the curriculum and the desire to employ innovative pedagogies. It offers readers a range of practical and realistic ways that curriculum changing ideas can be applied to individual projects, classrooms and even entire schools. This book tracks the imaginative initiatives undertaken by six schools as they have worked to change their curriculum and teaching in order to put student experiences at the core of the learning process. Stating its observations and suggestions in a refreshingly straightforward and practicable manner, this book explores: Why a new creative curriculum is needed for the 21st century How to encourage teachers and pupils to 'own' the curriculum The role that pupil voice plays in a creative curriculum The environment needed to creatively manipulate the curriculum How to introduce innovation to teaching practice What actually works - considering the limits and possibilities of creative pedagogy Providing case studies and examples of the ways in which teachers have delivered the curriculum in a creative way, Placing Students at the Heart of Creative Learning is an invaluably beneficial guide for all those involved in engaging and teaching young people in key stages 2 and 3.