Providing a much-needed global perspective-based analysis of the issue of educational values, this volume examines how higher education cultures are embedded within and heavily influenced by national cultures, norms, and structures through the lenses of Teaching, Learning, Curricula, and Assessment.
When his mother died, eight-year-old David Butler's life changed forever. Expectations for his future disappeared along with his mother's warm presence, but the days ahead still held promise. David set his own bar high, and this at risk child never let go of the idea that he would become something greater. Laughed at by his family when he announced his plan to go to college, David received little support for his dreams. But he never stopped asking himself whether he could really have that life, whether it was possible to transcend his current circumstances and reach higher. Do our limits stop us from achieving or just provide opportunities to push past them? Young David used his natural optimism to keep working, and he made it to college. Today he holds a bachelor's degree and an MBA, and he has found a fulfilling career. One important lesson was that he was never really alone; the teachers and mentors who helped him along the way were a constant source of inspiration. This profound story shows how personal strength can overcome adversity. And it shows how the challenges we face in life can be our greatest teachers in the end.
Curriculum: From Theory to Practice introduces readers to curriculum theory and how it relates to classroom practice. Wesley Null provides a unique organization of the curriculum field into five traditions: systematic, existential, radical, pragmatic, and deliberative. He discusses the philosophical foundations of curriculum as well as historical and contemporary figures who have shaped each curriculum tradition. Additionally, after a chapter on each of the five perspectives, Null presents case studies that describe realistic and specific curriculum problems that commonly arise within elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, and universities. Scholars and practitioners alike are given opportunities to practice resolving curriculum problems through deliberation. Each case study focuses on a critical issue such as the implementation of state curriculum standards, the attempt to reform core curriculum within universities, and the complex practice of curriculum making.
Contentious debates over the benefits—or drawbacks—of a liberal education are as old as America itself. From Benjamin Franklin to the Internet pundits, critics of higher education have attacked its irrelevance and elitism—often calling for more vocational instruction. Thomas Jefferson, by contrast, believed that nurturing a student’s capacity for lifelong learning was useful for science and commerce while also being essential for democracy. In this provocative contribution to the disputes, university president Michael S. Roth focuses on important moments and seminal thinkers in America’s long-running argument over vocational vs. liberal education. Conflicting streams of thought flow through American intellectual history: W. E. B. DuBois’s humanistic principles of pedagogy for newly emancipated slaves developed in opposition to Booker T. Washington’s educational utilitarianism, for example. Jane Addams’s emphasis on the cultivation of empathy and John Dewey’s calls for education as civic engagement were rejected as impractical by those who aimed to train students for particular economic tasks. Roth explores these arguments (and more), considers the state of higher education today, and concludes with a stirring plea for the kind of education that has, since the founding of the nation, cultivated individual freedom, promulgated civic virtue, and instilled hope for the future.
This open access volume features a data-rich portrait of what young adults think about the world. It collects the views of students in higher education from various cultural regions, religious traditions, linguistic groups, and political systems. This will help readers better understand a generation that will soon rise to power and influence. The analysis focuses on 12 countries. These include Canada, China, Finland, Ghana, India, Israel, Peru, Poland, Russia, Sweden, Turkey, and the USA. It employs a mixed-methods approach, invested in the study of an individual's views and values using state-of-the-art methodology, including the innovative Faith Q-sort. This instrument is new to the field and developed for assessing the entanglement of subjective views and personal beliefs. The study also incorporates a comprehensive values survey as well as other survey tools that look into people's social capital, media use, social values alignment, and subjective well-being. Each chapter is co-authored by an international team of scholars with research interest in the particular topic. The rationale for this principle is the need to engage individuals from different cultural backgrounds, scholarly disciplines, and methodological and substantive competences. In the end, this innovative approach presents an informed, empirically grounded analysis of the values and worldviews of the future generation. It sheds an important light on how changes in the religious landscape are intertwined with broad and diffuse processes of socio-economic and global cultural change.
This publication¿the latest report from AAC&U¿s Liberal Education and America¿s Promise (LEAP) initiative¿defines a set of educational practices that research has demonstrated have a significant impact on student success. Author George Kuh presents data from the National Survey of Student Engagement about these practices and explains why they benefit all students, but also seem to benefit underserved students even more than their more advantaged peers. The report also presents data that show definitively that underserved students are the least likely students, on average, to have access to these practices.
Our world is growing increasingly complex and confused—a unique and urgent context that calls for a grounded and fresh approach to Christian higher education. Christian higher education involves a distinctive way of thinking about teaching, learning, scholarship, curriculum, student life, administration, and governance that is rooted in the historic Christian faith. In this volume, twenty-nine experts from a variety of fields, including theology, the humanities, science, mathematics, social science, philosophy, the arts, and professional programs, explore how the foundational beliefs of Christianity influence higher education and its disciplines. Aimed at equipping the next generation to better engage the shifting cultural context, this book calls students, professors, trustees, administrators, and church leaders to a renewed commitment to the distinctive work of Christian higher education—for the good of the society, the good of the church, and the glory of God.
This timely book offers a critically important contribution to debates around the meeting place of religious and secular worldviews in education. Edited by five leading figures in the field, and drawing on expert international scholarship and research, the book provides cutting-edge analysis that bridges the religious and secular in global educational contexts. Considering the role of the United Nations, UNESCO, OECD and PISA in varied international contexts, the book draws on critical analysis of primary empirical research and secondary critique to offer a coherent blend of theoretically complex yet practical analysis of policy implementation. Throughout this accessible and logically structured volume, the authors assert that the meeting place of religious and secular worldviews is one of the most important and pressing issues for religion in education. As a field-defining work of research into education, religion and worldviews, the book will be essential reading for scholars, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of religious education, religious studies, philosophy of education and international education.
In the current climate, and in an age of increasing hostility towards religion and the study of religion, religious education is a much-debated area. Bringing together an interdisciplinary team of contributors from the USA, Britain and Ireland, and Australia, representing a variety of religious perspectives, Does Religious Education Matter? provocatively demonstrates that it is vital that religious education is presented as it ’really’ is: a valuable and rich resource that, when taught and engaged with appropriately, stimulates essential qualities for global and responsible citizenship: critical thinking, tolerance, respect, and mutual understanding.
Explores the current context, role, and challenges of post-secondary education and presents options for promising pathways forward. The post-secondary educational system has undergone dramatic changes and experienced immense stress in the past two decades. Once regarded as the logical next step toward career opportunities and financial security, higher education is a subject of growing uncertainty for millions of people across the United States. It is more common than ever to question the return on investment, skyrocketing cost, and student debt burden of going to college. Prospective students, and many employers, increasingly view attending institutions of higher learning as inadequate preparation for entering the 21st century workforce. High-profile scandals—financial impropriety, sexual abuse, restrictions of free speech, among others—have further eroded public trust. In response to these and other challenges, leading voices are demanding strengthened accountability and measurable change. Higher Education's Road to Relevance illustrates why change is needed in post-secondary education and offers practical solutions to pressing concerns. The authors, internationally recognized experts in college-level teaching and learning innovation, draw heavily from contemporary research to provide an integrative approach for post-secondary faculty, staff, and administrators of all levels. This timely book helps readers identify the need for leadership in developing new networks and ecosystems of learning and workforce development. This valuable book will help readers: Understand the forces driving change in higher education Develop multiple pathways to create and credential self-directed learners Promote access to flexible, cost-effective, and relevant learning Adapt structures and pedagogies to address issues and overcome challenges Use an inclusive approach that extends to employers, K-12 educators, post-secondary educators, and policy-makers, among others Higher Education's Road to Relevance is a much-needed resource for college and university administrators, academic researchers, instructors and other faculty, and staff who support and interact with students.