This book brings together authors from United States, South Africa, United Kingdom, China, Canada and Australia to provide insights and case studies from across a range of contexts to explore the interplay between the notions of rurality, innovation and education. The book reveals a hopeful and resilient approach to innovative rural education and scholarship collectively and provides important evidence to speak against an often deficit view of rural education. Three patterns are revealed, namely: the importance of place-attentive strategies, the importance of joined up alliances to maximise resources and networks and finally, the need to utilize alternative methodologies and frameworks that have a starting point of difference rather than deficit for any rural initiative or approach. By drawing from international examples and responding in innovative ways to rural education challenges, this book provides an opportunity to share international insights into innovations, interventions and partnerships that promote and support rural education in its broadest sense.
Most South African principals believe that subject heads and Heads of Departments should manage curriculum and teaching monitoring instead of (HODs). Due to this impression, curricular management by principals does not support teaching and learning.
Measuring innovation in education and understanding how it works is essential to improve the quality of the education sector. Monitoring systematically how pedagogical practices evolve would considerably increase the international education knowledge base. We need to examine whether, and how ...
An international joint study by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and UNESCO's International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) was conducted on education and rural development to review the status of the topic from the standpoint of public policies and the conceptual frameworks on which they are based and also to shed light on what may be called "good practice." The findings of the study are meant to serve not as models, but rather as points of reference for all those who are seeking ways of developing education in rural areas and contributing more effectively to rural development. Chapter I, "Education and Rural Development: Setting the Framework" (David Atchoarena and Charlotte Sedel), provides a contextual and theoretical introduction to the new rural development and poverty reduction thinking, as well as a discussion on the contribution of education to rural development. In Chapter II, "Basic Education in Rural Areas: Status, Issues and Prospects" (Michael Lakin with Lavinia Gasperini), the book reviews in depth the provision of basic education in rural areas and offers some policy directions for improvement. Further exploring a particular dimension of basic education, Chapter III, "Making Learning Relevant: Principles and Evidence from Recent Experiences" (Peter Taylor, Daniel Desmond, James Grieshop and Aarti Subramaniam), devotes specific attention to strategies linking the formal school teaching with students' life environment, including agriculture, and to garden-based learning. The intention is to provide updated information and new insights on much-debated aspects which are often associated with rural areas although their application is much broader. Chapter IV, "Strategies and Institutions for Promoting Skills for Rural Development" (David Atchoarena, Ian Wallace, Kate Green, and Candido Alberto Gomes), shifts the analysis from education to work and discusses the implications of the transformation of rural labor markets for skill development. A particular concern is the rise in rural non-farm employment and the need to enlarge the policy focus from agricultural education and training to technical and vocational education for rural development. This debate is taken further in Chapter V, "Higher Education and Rural Development: A New Perspective" (Charles Maguire and David Atchoarena), which considers higher level skills and the contribution of the tertiary education sector to rural development. Special attention is given to the reform of higher agricultural institutions and lessons based on case studies are provided to document good practice in institutional reform. Finally, Chapter VI, "Main Findings and Implications for Policy and Donor Support" (David Atchoarena with Lavinia Gasperini, Michael Lakin and Charles Maguire), concentrates on the main findings of the study and discusses policy implications and possible responses for donors and countries. (Contains 28 tables, 14 figures, and 64 boxes.).
This book first presents the evolution of education, from traditional face-to-face to the current remote and online education and its various iterations. The author shares experiences and insights on the most effective teaching techniques in both environments, some recent approaches, and highlights where there is need for continued improvement. Educators are provided with practical suggestions and examples to aid them in the design, promotion, and teaching of online courses worldwide. Topics include applying student and colleague feedback to improve teaching skills in an online setting; benefits of teaching, learning, and working in an online environment; and contrasts between synchronous and asynchronous modes of online instruction, among others. The ultimate goal is to promote accessible and equitable online education for all, regardless of the pandemics or political unrest. The reader is invited on a hands-on journey to discover the potential of the online educational experience, with thought-provoking questions to encourage reflection and growth along the way.
This volume focuses on innovative school-university-community collaborations that are being implemented in rural places in the United States. A foundational belief that underpins the contributions to this volume is that rural communities contain within themselves the resources to promote and sustain vibrant educational endeavors. This belief has inspired a wealth of innovations that collectively offer a countervailing perspective to the view that global competitiveness is the preeminent goal of education, and that this goal is best served by “big education.” Since early last century, there has been a pervasive implicit, and sometimes explicit, assumption that rural places are bereft of the ability to educate children effectively. As repeatedly witnessed in this volume, in collaboration with universities, schools in rural places and the communities that both sustain and rely on them can appropriately configure the educational environment to optimally nurture the intellectual growth of children. The chapters in this volume are grouped into three parts that explore, in turn, the design features of innovative school-universitycommunity collaborations, some novel approaches to such collaborations, and the contours of parental and community involvement in such collaborations. Chapters discuss both larger scale collaborations that involve many school districts across wide -spread regions, and smaller scale collaborations that involve intensive engagements among the educators and members of smaller communities, and offer theoretical insights into the collaborative process itself. As mentioned above, two narrative threads run through the chapters: that effective collaborations address goals and aspirations expressed by those who are privileged to live in rural America, and that effective collaborations are oriented to building on the strengths inherent in the social fabric of those rural communities.
