Forging closer links between university research and teaching has become an important way to enhance the quality of higher education across the world. As student engagement takes centre stage in ...academic life, how can academics and university leaders engage with their students to connect research and teaching more effectively? In this highly accessible book, the contributors show how students and academics can work in partnership to shape research-based education. Featuring student perspectives, it offers academics and university leaders practical suggestions and inspiring ideas on higher education pedagogy, including principles of working with students as partners in higher education, connecting students with real-world outputs, transcending disciplinary boundaries in student research activities, connecting students with the workplace, and innovative assessment and teaching practices. Written and edited in full collaboration with students and leading educator-researchers from a wide spectrum of academic disciplines, this book poses fundamental questions about learning and learning communities in contemporary higher education.
The knowledge capital of nations Hanushek, Eric Alan; Woessmann, Ludger
2015, 20150424, 20150410, 2015-05-26, 2015-04-24
eBook, Book
In this book the authors make a simple, central claim, developed with rigorous theoretical and empirical support: knowledge is the key to a country's development. Of course, every country ...acknowledges the importance of developing human capital, but the authors argue that message has become distorted, with politicians and researchers concentrating not on valued skills but on proxies for them. The common focus is on school attainment, although time in school provides a very misleading picture of how skills enter into development. The authors contend that the cognitive skills of the population-which they term the "knowledge capital" of a nation-are essential to long-run prosperity. The authors subject their hypotheses about the relationship between cognitive skills (as consistently measured by international student assessments) and economic growth to a series of tests, including alternate specifications, different subsets of countries, and econometric analysis of causal interpretations. They find that their main results are remarkably robust, and equally applicable to developing and developed countries. They demonstrate, for example, that the "Latin American growth puzzle" and the "East Asian miracle" can be explained by these regions' knowledge capital. Turning to the policy implications of their argument, they call for an education system that develops effective accountability, promotes choice and competition, and provides direct rewards for good performance. (Orig.).
With the increasing focus on the critical importance of mentoring in advancing Black women students from graduation to careers in academia, this book identifies and considers the peer mentoring ...contexts and conditions that support Black women student success in higher education. This edited collection focuses on Black women students primarily at the doctoral level and how they have retained each other through their educational journey, emphasizing how they navigated this season of educational changes given COVID and racial unrest. Chapters illuminate what minoritized women students have done to mentor each other to navigate unwelcome campus environments laden with identity politics and other structural barriers. Shining a light on systemic structures in place that contribute to Black women’s alienation in the academy, this book unpacks implications for interactions and engagement with faculty as advisors and mentors. An important resource for faculty and graduate students at colleges and universities, ultimately this work is critical to helping the academy fortify Black women’s sense of belonging and connection early in their academic career and foster their success.
The conference brought together 44 African ministers of finance and of education from 28 African countries for a structured dialogue on sustaining Africa's economic and educational progress in the ...current context of a global economic slowdown. African countries have achieved laudable progress during the last decade towards the Education for All (EFA) goals for 2015 that were agreed in Dakar in 2000, particularly with regard to Universal Primary Education (UPE). This progress reflects the combined impact of several factors, notably courageous education reforms, substantially increased public financing of education made possible largely by sustained economic growth and increased political priority for education-and greater inflows of external aid for education. The momentum may be jeopardized, however, by the current worldwide economic downturn. Tightening domestic budgets and external aid could increase the difficulty of sustaining policy reform and strategic investments, thereby putting at risk the hard won gains of the last ten years. They could also undermine Africa's efforts to develop post basic education and training and delay achievement of key goals of the African Union's Second Decade for Education in Africa. The result would be to frustrate the aspirations of the increasing numbers of African youth who seek to go beyond primary education and to deny their prospective employers the skilled workforce that could help boost business competitiveness and economic growth. The emerging global economic circumstances provided a key rationale for the Conference. Its purpose was to stimulate dialogue among senior policy makers on policy options to achieve a mutually reinforcing relation between education and the economy.
This open access book challenges international policy ‘groupthink’ about lifelong learning. Adult learning – too long a servant of business competitiveness – should be reimagined as central to ...democratic society. Young adults, especially from disadvantaged backgrounds, engage more in education and training, and learn more day-to-day at work, if provision is democratically organised and based on enduring and inclusive institutional networks, and when jobs encourage and reward the acquisition of skills. Using innovative qualitative and quantitative methods, the contributors develop a critical perspective on dominant policies, investigating – across the European Union and Australia – how ‘vulnerable’ young adults experience programmes designed to improve their ‘employability’, and how ‘skills for jobs’ policies squeeze out wider – and wiser – ideas of what education and training should do. Chapters show why some provision works for those with poor educational backgrounds, why labour market and educational institutions matter so much, how adult education can empower and expand people’s agency, and the challenges of using artificial intelligence in lifelong learning policy-making. Several investigate the pivotal role of workplace learning in organisational life, and in learning during ‘emerging adulthood’. Important comparative studies of workplace learning in the metals, retail and adult education sectors show the role of management, trade unions and social movements in young adults’ learning.
This open access book provides an analysis of contemporary societies and schools shaped by cultural diversity, globalization and migration. This diversity is necessarily reflected in education ...systems and requires the promotion of intercultural approaches able to improve learning processes and the quality of education. From an international and comparative perspective, this book first presents theoretical and conceptual foundations for seriously considering cultural diversity. The book also compares intercultural approaches and debates generated in countries as diverse as the United States, Canada, Brazil, Switzerland and France. For each national context, the book addresses both the historical roots of intercultural approaches and the concrete initiatives driven by educational policies for their implementation in schools and classrooms. Finally, the book presents discussions surrounding the treatment of linguistic or religious diversity in schools, the emergence of global citizenship education and the key role of teachers in intercultural approaches. This is an open access book.
Contents: Cover; Title; Copyright; Dedication; CONTENTS; PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS; CONTRIBUTORS; Part 1. Costs and Productivity in Higher Education; Cost Trends, the "Cost Disease," and ...Productivity in Higher Education; Factors Other Than the Cost Disease Pushing Up Educational Costs; Affordability; Is There a Serious Problem-Even a Crisis?; Notes; Part 2. Prospects for an Online Fix; Background; The Lack of Hard Evidence; The Need for Customizable, Sustainable Platforms (or Tool Kits); The Need for New Mindsets-and Fresh Thinking about Decision-Making; What Must We Retain? Inhalt: Appendix: The Online Learning LandscapeNotes; Discussion by Howard Gardner; Discussion by John Hennessy; William G. Bowen's Responses to Discussion Session Comments; Discussion by Andrew Delbanco; Discussion by Daphne Koller; William G. Bowen's Responses to Discussion Session Comments; INDEX.
This book is intended to help practitioners in adult education become better informed about assessment, evaluation, and accountability as these are critical functions of administering and running ...adult education programs. The book is for adult educators who have been asked to serve on assessment committees, produce detailed reports for funders and accreditors, create a culture of assessment within their program and organization, and/or develop reports for accountability purposes. Section one presents an introductory overview of assessment and evaluation in adult education. Section two gives guidance on practices for specific areas of adult education practice, such as military education, human resource development, and continuing professional education. Section three provides assessment practices for adults in higher education, with chapters dedicated to distance learning, health professions education, and graduate education.
This book presents an argument for supporting single-sex education. It examines the history and politics of gender and schooling; philosophical and psychological theories of sameness and differences; ...findings on educational achievement and performance; research evidence on single-sex schooling; and the legal questions that arise from single-sex schooling. The author shifts the debate from the merits of sex separation per se to the question of how best to provide an appropriate education for all children based not on group stereotypes but on informed understandings of individual needs as they, at times, coalesce around gender. Chapters are titled as followed: (1) "Text and Subtext"; (2) "A Tale of Three Cities"; (3) "Equality Engendered"; (4) "Myths and Realities in the Gender Wars"; (5) "Who's Winning, Who's Losing, and Why?"; (6) "Legal Narratives"; (7) "Reconciling the Law"; (8) "The Research Evidence"; and (9) "Rethinking Single-Sex Schooling." (Contains a subject index.) (WFA)
This open access book provides academic insights and serves as a platform for research-informed discussion about education in Finland. Bringing together the work of more than 50 authors across 28 ...chapters, it presents a major collection of critical views of the Finnish education system and topics that cohere around social justice concerns. It questions rhetoric, myths, and commonly held assumptions surrounding Finnish schooling. This book draws on the fields of sociology of education, education policy, urban studies, and policy sociology. It makes use of a range of research methodologies including ethnography, case study and discourse analysis, and references the work of relevant theorists, including Bourdieu and Foucault. This book aims to provide a critical, updated and astute analysis of the strengths and challenges of the Finnish education system.
