The introduction of the Foundation Stage for children age three to becoming six has had a profound impact on policy and practice in early education in the UK. The choice of the word 'foundation' to describe this first stage of learning has emphasised the importance of children's earliest experiences in underpinning all their subsequent attitudes and achievements. In this innovative and challenging book, Julie Fisher has brought together some of the country's leading early years specialists to explore how educators can establish firm foundations for young children's learning. The themes in the book are stimulated by the metaphor of 'foundations', with an introduction by an architect who explains the principles of establishing firm foundations for buildings. Each of these established engineering principles is then creatively explored from an educational perspective as the authors seek to question how the foundations laid for buildings can offer fresh insights into the principles for creating firm foundations for learning.
Foundations of Education incorporates relevant interdisciplinary perspectives and emphasizes coverage of key issues in education, with up-to-date research, primary resources, and documentation. This text provides comprehensive and substantive coverage of all foundational areas--including social, philosophical, historical, political, economic, curricular, and legal--for students who are preparing for a career in teaching and for those who simply wish to learn more about significant contemporary issues in education. The authors have included strong, thought-provoking pedagogy, and have emphasized the growing role of technology in education, especially in the new Technology@School feature.New! In This Case boxed features contain brief, fictional case scenarios that describe situations in which a new teacher might find themselves. Readers are asked to think critically about concepts discussed in each chapter to answer questions that encourage critical and applied analysis.New! Expanded topical overview charts in each chapter summarize and compare key developments and topics in education.New! Information about standards addresses the growing emphasis on holding students, teachers and schools accountable for performing at levels specified by local, state, and national standards. New sections focus on preparing teachers for the stress related to state/district standards, and legal issues, including the No Child Left Behind act, are addressed.Technology@School, a popular feature in every chapter, updates students on relevant developments in educational technology and provides information that may prove useful in their teaching careers. Topics include, Usingthe Internet to Learn About World Schools (Chapter 3), Helping Students Develop Media Literacy (Chapter 9), and Protecting Students from Undesirable Material on the Web (Chapter 13).Focus Questions appear at the beginning of each chapter and provide students with an organized reference to chapter material--Refocus Questions appear after major text sections and are designed to help reinforce and improve the students' comprehension by reviewing the information in the chapter.Taking issue charts appear in each chapter to present controversial issues in the field of education, offering arguments on both sides of a question to illustrate why the topic is important and how it affects contemporary schools. Instructors can use these charts as the basis for class discussions or essay assignments.Eduspace, a customizable, powerful, interactive platform, provides instructors with text-specific online courses and content in multiple disciplines. Eduspace gives an instructor the ability to create all or part of their course online using the widely recognized tools of Blackboard and quality text-specific content from HMCo. Instructors can quickly and easily assign homework exercises, quizzes, tests, tutorials and supplemental study materials and can modify that content or even add their own.
Psychological Foundations of Education presents some of the principles of psychology that are relevant to learning and teaching. It presents an alternative answer to the problem of the bifurcation of general and educational psychology in the curriculum of teacher preparation. While the solution is provisional and has obvious imperfections, it is offered in the hope that it may stimulate discussion of the problem and other solutions and/or explicit justifications for past practice. Key concepts discussed include teachers' attitudes and behavior, different types of learning, technology in education, forgetting and extinction, child development, and intelligence measurements. Also covered are the assessment of educational achievement, the social psychology of the classroom, and education in urban schools. This text should have a variety of uses in classes where students are preparing for teaching. It was written specifically for those situations in which the prospective teacher is introduced to psychology through a one- or two-semester integrated sequence.
A new edition of a graduate-level machine learning textbook that focuses on the analysis and theory of algorithms. This book is a general introduction to machine learning that can serve as a textbook for graduate students and a reference for researchers. It covers fundamental modern topics in machine learning while providing the theoretical basis and conceptual tools needed for the discussion and justification of algorithms. It also describes several key aspects of the application of these algorithms. The authors aim to present novel theoretical tools and concepts while giving concise proofs even for relatively advanced topics. Foundations of Machine Learning is unique in its focus on the analysis and theory of algorithms. The first four chapters lay the theoretical foundation for what follows; subsequent chapters are mostly self-contained. Topics covered include the Probably Approximately Correct (PAC) learning framework; generalization bounds based on Rademacher complexity and VC-dimension; Support Vector Machines (SVMs); kernel methods; boosting; on-line learning; multi-class classification; ranking; regression; algorithmic stability; dimensionality reduction; learning automata and languages; and reinforcement learning. Each chapter ends with a set of exercises. Appendixes provide additional material including concise probability review. This second edition offers three new chapters, on model selection, maximum entropy models, and conditional entropy models. New material in the appendixes includes a major section on Fenchel duality, expanded coverage of concentration inequalities, and an entirely new entry on information theory. More than half of the exercises are new to this edition.
Edited by a diverse group of expert collaborators, the Handbook of the Cultural Foundations of Learning is a landmark volume that brings together cutting-edge research examining learning as entailing inherently cultural processes. Conceptualizing culture as both a set of social practices and connected to learner identities, the chapters synthesize contemporary research in elaborating a new vision of the cultural nature of learning, moving beyond summary to reshape the field toward studies that situate culture in the learning sciences alongside equity of educational processes and outcomes. With the recent increased focus on culture and equity within the educational research community, this volume presents a comprehensive, innovative treatment of what has become one of the field’s most timely and relevant topics.
A research-based foundational overview of contemporary adult education Foundations of Adult and Continuing Education distills decades of scholarship in the field to provide students and practitioners with an up-to-date practical resource. Grounded in research and focused on the unique needs of adult learners, this book provides a foundational overview of adult education, and an introduction to the organizations and practices developed to support adult learning in a variety of contexts. The discussion also includes select understandings of international adult education, policy, and methods alongside theoretical frameworks, contemporary and historical contexts, and the guiding principles of adult education today. Coverage of emerging issues includes the aging society, social justice, and more, with expert insight from leading authorities in the field. Many adult educators begin practice through the context of their own experiences in the field. This book provides the broader research, theory, and practice needed for a deeper understanding of adult education and its place in society. Learn the key philosophical and theoretical frameworks of adult education Survey the landscape of the field through contemporary and historical foundations Examine key guiding understandings and practices targeted to adult learners Delve into newer concerns including technology, globalization, and more Foundations of Adult and Continuing Education provides an expertly-led overview of the field, and an essential introduction to real-world practice.
