The book discusses the complex nature of understanding and what it means to teach for understanding. The processes and strategies that can support teaching for understanding are then exemplified in the context of different areas of the primary / elementary (4-11 years) school curriculum.

There is a growing interest in philosophy with children, based on the belief that classroom philosophising not only enhances children's oral language, literacy and thinking but also promotes independence of mind and spirit, benefiting the children, their teachers and the school as a whole.
Children as Philosophers is an accessible and thought-provoking book that balances an exploration of theoretical and critical considerations of using philosophy in the classroom with real examples of children working as philosophers.
Based on research by the author with primary school students, and full of practical suggestions for teachers, it demonstrates that, from a young age, children are capable of engaging in a sophisticated process of dialogue and enquiry and argues that they should have space and time to do so. The book offers a structure for moral enquiry within the PSHE and Citizenship curriculum. It discusses the pleasures and challenges for adults in managing discussion and facing children's claims to knowledge in the philosophical arena. The book addresses the well-established Philosophy for Children movement, developed in the USA and Australia, and puts this into a UK context.

This book stresses learning and teaching over teaching and learning. The contributors contend that education should not focus primarily on teachers and teaching, but on learners: how best to facilitate learning, in the most effective, enjoyable, relevant and cost-effective ways for learners at any age. The book brings together thoughts and insights by international leaders in the fields of teaching and learning. It seeks to build bridges between researchers, policy makers and practitioners.

Learner-centered teaching is a pedagogical approach that emphasizes the roles of students as participants in and drivers of their own learning. Learner-centered teaching activities go beyond traditional lecturing by helping students construct their own understanding of information, develop skills via hands-on engagement, and encourage personal reflection through metacognitive tasks. In addition, learner-centered classroom approaches may challenge students' preconceived notions and expand their thinking by confronting them with thought-provoking statements, tasks or scenarios that cause them to pay closer attention and cognitively "see" a topic from new perspectives. Many types of pedagogy fall under the umbrella of learner-centered teaching including laboratory work, group discussions, service and project-based learning, and student-led research, among others. Unfortunately, it is often not possible to use some of these valuable methods in all course situations given constraints of money, space, instructor expertise, class-meeting and instructor preparation time, and the availability of prepared lesson plans and material. Thus, a major challenge for many instructors is how to integrate learner-centered activities widely into their courses. The broad goal of this volume is to help advance environmental education practices that help increase students' environmental literacy. Having a diverse collection of learner-centered teaching activities is especially useful for helping students develop their environmental literacy because such approaches can help them connect more personally with the material thus increasing the chances for altering the affective and behavioral dimensions of their environmental literacy. This volume differentiates itself from others by providing a unique and diverse collection of classroom activities that can help students develop their knowledge, skills and personal views about many contemporary environmental and sustainability issues.

This book is about the reflective journey of Sharada Gade, a teacher-practitioner who turned into a researcher-practitioner. The book holds many lessons, as the author talks about her collaboration with teachers and her experience in coauthoring research reports with them. She also discusses how to teach and implement instructional interventions. This practical knowledge is supported by perspectives from cultural historical activity theory (CHAT). Such a stance offers conceptual clarity to the book's lessons by drawing from across continents, institutions and academic fields. The culmination of these efforts makes for fascinating reading, one that sheds much needed theoretical-practical light for practitioners to take transformative action in their own classrooms.

This book introduces and analyzes the models for engineering leadership and competency skills, as well as frameworks for industry-academia collaboration and is appropriate for students, researchers, and professionals interested in continuous professional development. The authors look at the organizational structures of engineering education in knowledge-based economies and examine the role of innovation and how it is encouraged in schools. It also provides a methodological framework and toolkit for investigating the needs of engineering and technology skills in national contexts. A detailed empirical case study is included that examines the leadership competencies that are needed in knowledge-based economies and how one university encourages these in their program. The book concludes with conceptual modeling and proposals of specific organizational structures for implementation in engineering schools, in order to enable the development of necessary skills for future engineering graduates.

Formation of Character is the fifth volume of Charlotte Mason's Homeschooling series. The chapters stand alone and are valuable to parents of children of all ages. Part I includes case studies of children (and adults) who cured themselves of bad habits. Part II is a series of reflections on subjects including both schooling and vacations (or "stay-cations" as we now call them). Part III covers various aspects of home schooling, with a special section detailing the things that Charlotte Mason thought were important to teach to girls in particular. Part IV consists of examples of how education affected outcome of character in famous writers of her day. Charlotte Mason was a late nineteenth-century British educator whose ideas were far ahead of her time. She believed that children are born persons worthy of respect, rather than blank slates, and that it was better to feed their growing minds with living literature and vital ideas and knowledge, rather than dry facts and knowledge filtered and pre-digested by the teacher. Her method of education, still used by some private schools and many homeschooling families, is gentle and flexible, especially with younger children, and includes first-hand exposure to great and noble ideas through books in each school subject, conveying wonder and arousing curiosity, and through reflection upon great art, music, and poetry; nature observation as the primary means of early science teaching; use of manipulatives and real-life application to understand mathematical concepts and learning to reason, rather than rote memorization and working endless sums; and an emphasis on character and on cultivating and maintaining good personal habits. Schooling is teacher-directed, not child-led, but school time should be short enough to allow students free time to play and to pursue their own worthy interests such as handicrafts. Traditional Charlotte Mason schooling is firmly based on Christianity, although the method is also used successfully by secular families and families of other religions.

Research and Development in School: Grounded in Cultural Historical Activity Theory intends to give student teachers, teachers and school leaders research knowledge about which methodologies (research approaches) and methods (data collection and analysis methods) they can use as tools when researching the day-to-day affairs of school and classroom practice.

Higher education plays a significant role in shaping our cultural identity. Yet, in this ever-changing world, it's important to consider what adjustments American universities are making-or need to make-to meet the dynamic societal requirements.

Change is often challenging for large institutions, and academia is no different. The contributors to this issue of The Annals take a hard look at current changes in higher education and propose further modification for the American university in the coming decades.

The issue opens with a blueprint for change that looks at the impact of current social concerns and ways that universities can respond to those concerns. The remaining articles include topics on land-grant universities, urban universities, the corporatization of the university, the focus on institution management, equal opportunity for higher education, the influence of fraternities and sororities, trends in postsecondary science, distance learning, the social context of applied science, tertiary education in Europe, reengineering of education, and a review of literature of higher education.

It's fitting that this issue of The Annals, which examines the transformations of higher education, includes some changes of its own. Beginning with this first issue of 2003, The Annals has launched a new layout and design. Readers will find the journal easier to use; and the design changes also signify undergoing transformations within the academy itself. The academy has renewed and reinvigorated its commitment-as its 1891 charter proclaims-to "promote the progress of the political and social sciences."

Victor Hugo has been attributed with the quotation, "Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots." This issue is devoted to change in the American university; and the improvements to the design and layout of The Annals reflect the academy's dedication to its core philosophy.

This volume provides a contemporary glance at the drastically expanding field of delivering large-scale education to unprecedented numbers of learners. It compiles papers presented at the CELDA (Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age) conference, which has a goal of continuing to address these challenges and promote the effective use of new tools and technologies to support teaching, learning and assessment. Given the emerging global trend to exploit the potential of existing digital technologies to improve the teaching, learning and assessment experiences for all learners in real-life contexts, this topic is a unifying theme for this volume. The book showcases how emerging educational technologies and innovative practices have been used to address core global educational challenges. It provides state-of-the-art insights and case studies of exploiting innovative learning technologies, including Massive Open Online Courses and educational data analytics, to address key global challenges spanning from online Teacher Education to large-scale coding competence development. This volume will be of interest to academics and professional practitioners working in the area of digital technology integration in teaching, learning and assessment, as well as those interested in specific conference themes (e.g., designing and assessing learning in online environments, assessing learning in complex domains) and presenters, invited speakers, and participants of the CELDA conference.

This volume, created by seventeen interdisciplinary authors, brings together pioneering practices that introduce arts into education in Japan. The field of research ranges from kindergarten, primary and secondary school to liberal arts and postgraduate courses at university. The chapters cover both formal and informal settings, such as museums and after school programs. The genres of art include visual art, performance, dance, vocal music, and drama. Arts-based or arts-inspired methods help students' artistic inquiry through creative or performative practices, leading to new findings that might not otherwise be described. Artistic practice makes students reflect on their own bodies, emotions, feelings, ways of life, and relationships with others, which leads to creative thinking. The volume is based on three new trends in art and education: 1) the development of Arts-Based Research in Japan since its introduction from abroad; 2) the introduction of art practice into academic research in various disciplines and diverse educational settings; and 3) the new trend in drama education and theatrical performance in Japan. Each chapter inspires and provokes discussion among researchers and practitioners in various educational settings on the future direction of art education in Japan and around the world.

This book provides readers a better understanding of the interaction-learning relationship in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context. It introduces theories on input, output, and learners' internal mechanisms, and presents the pedagogical implications of how to adapt focus-on-form instruction in Chinese EFL classrooms. As such, it will be of particular interest to those readers who want to explore the relationship between interaction and language acquisition.

There is no research-based text that provides a model for teaching and learning in a virtual environment with literacy learners. Therefore, this book will focus on preparing challenging students to be successful independent learners for the twenty first century. This will involve one where students are constructing their own meaning not only within the traditional brick and mortar environment with the assistant of the classroom teacher, but also in an online environment scaffolded by a virtual tutor. Today, virtual environments are a common alternative space for students in K-12 to engage in meaningful online literacy learning with their tutors (Boxie, 2004; Hurst, 2007; Williams & Casale, 2015; Witte, 2007).

The flipped classroom methodology is one of the latest innovations in the field of education, challenging traditional notions of the classroom experience. Applying this methodology to language learning has the potential to further engage students and drive their understanding of key concepts. Flipped Instruction Methods and Digital Technologies in the Language Learning Classroom explores the latest educational technologies and web-based learning solutions for effective language learning curricula. Featuring emergent research on critical topics and innovations in the field of education, this publication is an essential resource for educators, administrators, instructional designers, pre-service teachers, and researchers in the field of education.

This book is about teaching for professional practice and explores ways to engage students in the classroom. It draws on the principles of rigorous scholarship and focuses on interactive learning between the class and the professor and among the students. Each contributor addresses the need to connect theory with community practice, deploying different methods in different contexts, and sharing scholarly reflections about how to improve the craft of teaching. The essays offer practical suggestions that allow readers to adapt and apply these ideas in their own classrooms to suit their particular contexts and share the outcomes of that process.

This book offers valuable guidance for science teacher educators looking for ways to facilitate preservice and inservice teachers pedagogy relative to teaching students from underrepresented and underserved populations in the science classroom. It also provides solutions that will better equip science teachers of underrepresented student populations with effective strategies that challenge the status quo, and foster classrooms environment that promotes equity and social justice for all of their science students.

"Multicultural Science Education" illuminates historically persistent, yet unresolved issues in science teacher education from the perspectives of a remarkable group of science teacher educators and presents research that has been done to address these issues. It centers on research findings on underserved and underrepresented groups of students and presents frameworks, perspectives, and paradigms that have implications for transforming science teacher education. In addition, the chapters provide an analysis of the socio-cultural-political consequences in the ways in which science teacher education is theoretically conceptualized and operationalized in the United States.

The book provides teacher educators with a framework for teaching through a lens of equity and social justice, one that may very well help teachers enhance the participation of students from traditionally underrepresented and underserved groups in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) areas and help them realize their full potential in science. Moreover, science educators will find this book useful for professional development workshops and seminars for both novice and veteran science teachers.

""Multicultural Science Education: Preparing Teachers for Equity and Social Justice" directly addresses the essential role that science teacher education plays for the future of an informed and STEM knowledgeable citizenry. The editors and authors review the beginnings of multicultural science education, and then highlight findings from studies on issues of equity, underrepresentation, cultural relevancy, English language learning, and social justice. The most significant part of this book is the move to the policy level providing specific recommendations for policy development, implementation, assessment and analysis, with calls to action for all science teacher educators, and very significantly, all middle and high school science teachers and prospective teachers.

By emphasizing the important role that multicultural science education has played in providing the knowledge base and understanding of exemplary science education, "Multicultural Science Education: Preparing Teachers for Equity and Social Justice" gives the reader a scope and depth of the field, along with examples of strategies to use with middle and high school students. These classroom instructional strategies are based on sound science and research. Readers are shown the balance between research-based data driven models articulated with successful instructional design. Science teacher educators will find this volume of great value as they work with their pre-service and in-service teachers about how to address and infuse multicultural science education within their classrooms.For educators to be truly effective in their classrooms, they must examine every component of the learning and teaching process. Multicultural Science Education: Preparing Teachers for Equity and Social Justice provides not only the intellectual and research bases underlying multicultural studies in science education, but also the pragmatic side. All teachers and teacher educators can infuse these findings and recommendations into their classrooms in a dynamic way, and ultimately provide richer learning experiences for all students."

Patricia Simmons, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, USA

"This provocative collection of chapters is a presentation in gutsiness. Ingenious in construction and sequencing, this book will influence science teacher educators by introducing them to issues of equity and social justice directly related to women and people of color. The authors unflinchingly interrogate issues of equity which need to be addressed in science education courses.

"This provocative collection of chapters is a presentation in gutsiness. Ingenious in construction and sequencing, this book will influence science teacher educators by introducing them to issues of equity and social justice directly related to women and people of color. The authors unflinchingly interrogate issues of equity which need to be addressed in science education courses.

It begins with setting current cultural and equity issue within a historic frame. The first chapter sets the scene by moving the reader through 400 years in which African-American s were scientifically excluded from science . This is followed by a careful review of the Jim Crow era, an analysis of equity issues of women and ends with an examination of sociocultural consciousness and culturally responsive teaching.

Two chapters comprise the second section. Each chapter examines the role of the science teacher in providing a safe place by promoting equity and social justice in the classroom. The three chapters in the third section focus on secondary science teachers. Each addresses issues of preparation that provides new teachers with understanding of equity and provokes questions of good teaching.

Section four enhances and expands the first section as the authors suggest cultural barriers the impact STEM engagement by marginalized groups. The last section, composed of three chapters, interrogates policy issues that influence the science classroom."

Molly Weinburgh, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, USA"

Research and Development in School: Grounded in Cultural Historical Activity Theory intends to give student teachers, teachers and school leaders research knowledge about which methodologies (research approaches) and methods (data collection and analysis methods) they can use as tools when researching the day-to-day affairs of school and classroom practice.

Community colleges have experienced a dramatic shift in focus and direction over the past 25 years. The impact of federal policy that emphasizes employment over education and the increased pressure for community colleges to meet the needs of local industries has led experts to ask whether or not contemporary community colleges are best serving their students.

As a bridge between public K-12 schools and higher education, community colleges were designed as a gateway for groups of students who would otherwise be excluded from higher education, most notably poorer and minority students. Ideally, this education sector should be a democratizing force in American society. Yet community colleges continue to struggle with their mission, and a variety of factors make it increasingly difficult to meet it.

The articles in this special issue of the ANNALS examine the role of community colleges and how they respond to an emerging set of challenges. Three basic themes are threaded throughout the journal: recent changes in federal policy and how it affects community colleges; societal factors that have contributed to the movement of community colleges away from their traditional academic mission; and how well specific community college practices serve the academic and employment needs of their students.

All of the authors agree that community colleges are, overall, increasingly responsive to the industry and business sector rather than to the students enrolled in their courses.

Scholars, community college leaders, and policymakers will find these insights a valuable resource as the effort to define and meet the goals of community colleges continue.

This book shows how teachers and educators can use stories of their professional experiences to reflect on their own practice, articulate values and beliefs, give shape and form to teaching theory, and better understand decision-making processes.

Adult learning ability is by and large considered a "net good" and is established through extra resources, the cultivation of experiences, and services like tutoring and test-taking. However, even with the proliferation of such tools, there is no single solution that can address the needs of a broad population of students. To address each learner's individual needs, educators must equip themselves with as many methods as they can to ensure learners' success. Building and Maintaining Adult Learning Advantage is an essential publication that covers the varied facets of adult learning as well as how to keep learners on the cutting edge of their education. While covering a broad range of topics including collaborative learning, development motivation, and learning advantage constraints, this book introduces new, innovative strategies and methods for creating adult learner advantage. This book is ideally designed for educators, curriculum developers, instructional designers, digital content developers, analysts, administrators, researchers, academicians, and students.

The authors combine relevant and cutting-edge information on existing and future use of videoconferencing technology in the field of education.

A volume in Literacy, Language, and Learning Series Editor Patricia Ruggiano Schmidt, Our goal in writing this book was to validate teachers for strong efforts in their life's work. We often observe teachers' frustrations with what they perceive to be a multitude of different ""hot topics"" in education that they must attend to now, but which they expect to come and go, like the last ""hot topics."" So, we wanted to help readers see similarities between many of these ""hot topics""-differentiation, multiple intelligences, culturally responsive teaching, ""brain-friendly"" strategies, authentic assessment, and ethical classroom management- which we feel are not ""flashes in the pan."" And we trust that serious practitioners will not oversimplify the findings of neuroscientists and their application to education. Reading studies and books by scientists, a number of which are user-friendly, can help ensure that teachers separate the hype from credible information. We have seen this professionally judicious approach in the work of graduate students (Kolinski, 2007) in adopting ""brain-friendly"" strategies. We have intentionally packed both theoretical/research-based and practical information in this book because professional educators want to know why they should use certain approaches, models, and strategies. In turn, as professionals, we should be able to explain why we teach the way we do-not to justify, but to educate others about our knowledge-based, reflective, decision-making processes and the impact on student learning. Thus, it is important to read Chapter 1 because it lays a foundation. Each succeeding chapter (2-6) has unique and compelling twists and turns-chock full of ideas to use or to adapt. It is possible to gain lots of ideas, processes, and strategies from reading and implementing (or adapting) even one of the unit chapters, or a part of it. While some of the units are explicitly about literacy, others focus on content using reading, writing, speaking, and listening as critical in the learning process. Thus, literacy skills are reinforced and strengthened. Additionally, some of our colleagues and public school partners have given us feedback that they wanted to implement some of the units and activities themselves. So, feel free to use this book for self-exploration and professional development.

Educational technologies are becoming commonplace entities in classrooms as they provide more options and support for teachers and students. However, many teachers are finding these technologies difficult to use due to a lack of training and instruction on how to effectively apply them to the classroom. TPACK: Breakthroughs in Research and Practice is an authoritative reference source for the latest research on the integration of technological knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and content knowledge in the contexts of K-12 education. Highlighting a range of pertinent topics such as pedagogical strategies, blended learning, and technology integration, this publication is an ideal resource for educators, instructional designers, administrators, academicians, and teacher education programs seeking current findings on the implementation of technology in instructional design.

'This is an impressive book that will be of wide interest to adult educators everywhere.Many of the book's contributors work at the University of Technology, Sydney - surely the world's pre-eminent institution for the study of adult learning, and the most open and generous location for debate. Its virtues are the book's.'Alan Tuckett, National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, UK'I am happy to endorse this book enthusiastically as being appropriate for a North American audience of adult educators.Though it's an intentionally introductory survey, it never talks down to readers, never condescends. On the other hand, it's not so intenationally erudite that it collagpses into theoretical posturing; it stays firmly grounded in and connected to practice.'Stephen Brookfield, University of St. Thomas, USAUnderstanding Adult Education and Training offers a broad overview of the field for adult educators and workplace trainers. It introduces the keys issues, debates and theories in a way which is relevant to practice. Its aim is to deepen readers' understanding of adult learning and education so that they can be better practitioners.Adult education is a diverse field so there is no single body of knowledge which is appropriate for all adult educators. Understanding Adult Education and Training introduces a wide range of formal theory from adult education and associated fields, and shows readers how they can use it their own circumstances.The first edition of this book has become a standard reference for students and professionals in Australia. This edition is fully revised and updated for an international readership.