Realizing General Education: Reconsidering Conceptions and Renewing Practice
Realizing General Education: Reconsidering Conceptions and Renewing Practice

Author: Cynthia A. Wells

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2016-01-11

Total Pages: 112

ISBN-13: 111924465X

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General education is widely touted as an enduring distinctive of higher education, but what do we actually mean by general education? Differing perspectives not only make it challenging to consider its significance, but also open it up to a wide range of determinations regarding its effectiveness. This volume aims to sharpen understanding of the complex picture of general education by: describing how various conceptions of general education evolved historically, identifying various functions expected of general education in the contemporary context, and pointing out the educational practices that fulfill general education’s aims in the current context. The conceptions of, and aspirations for, general education are consequential. This volume disentangles the divergent conceptions that hinder its renewal and considers the range of avenues for realizing its effectiveness. This is the second issue of the 42nd volume of the Jossey-Bass series ASHE Higher Education Report. Each monograph is the definitive analysis of a tough higher education issue, based on thorough research of pertinent literature and institutional experiences. Topics are identified by a national survey. Noted practitioners and scholars are then commissioned to write the reports, with experts providing critical reviews of each manuscript before publication.

A Process Approach to General Education Reform
A Process Approach to General Education Reform

Author: Susan Gano-Phillips

Publisher: Atwood Publications

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 9781891859816

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The call for general education reform in higher education has sounded clearly and consistently, but responses to this call have been varied. Gano-Phillips, Barnett, and the text's contributors believe that many of the institutional efforts have been content focused, and they argue that this fragments the efforts, creating divides between constituencies. Instead, the editors and contributors urge reformers to adopt a process focus which creates a community striving toward a goal together. In A Process Approach, editors Gano-Phillips and Barnett have put together a definitive collection of essays on the reform of general education programs in higher education, presented much like case studies. The contributors come from large and small institutions and from various parts of the country. Common among all the stories is the emphasis on bringing together all the stakeholders so that all can be represented and heard. Collectively, this group then works with a process approach to reach a general education reform appropriate to and reflective of the individual institution. As Gano-Phillips and Barnett write in the Introduction: A one-size-fits-all approach has not proven successful historically. Rather, as campus culture and reform processes are examined in synchrony, we contend that sustainable and substantive curricular reform is more likely to occur. This book offers readers and reformers paths for examining and encouraging the evolution of their unique campus cultures. And, through that examination, new and more useful models can emerge, resulting in a curricular reform that can be embraced by all.

General Education Essentials
General Education Essentials

Author: Paul Hanstedt

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2012-04-25

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 1118329554

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General Education Essentials "Full-time and part-time faculty in any discipline and at any size campus with any type of mission can pick up this volume and learn something that will help her or him improve teaching and learning.???"—From the Foreword by Terrel L. Rhodes, vice president for Curriculum, Quality, and Assessment, Association of American Colleges and Universities Every year, hundreds of small colleges, state schools, and large, research-oriented universities across the United States (and, increasingly, Europe and Asia) revisit their core and general education curricula, often moving toward more integrative models. And every year, faculty members who are highly skilled in narrowly defined fields ask two simple questions: "Why?" and "How is this going to affect me?" General Education Essentials seeks to answer these and other questions by providing a much-needed overview of and a rationale for the recent shift in general education curricular design, a sense of how this shift can affect a faculty member's teaching, and an understanding of how all of this might impact course and student assessment. Filled with examples from a variety of disciplines that will spark insights, General Education Essentials explores the techniques that can be used to ensure that students are gaining the skills they need to be perceptive scholars and productive citizens. "This is THE ONE BOOK for academics to get up to speed about reforming general education." —Jerry Gaff, senior scholar, Association of American Colleges and Universities

Tinkering toward Utopia
Tinkering toward Utopia

Author: David B. TYACK

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2009-06-30

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 0674044525

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For over a century, Americans have translated their cultural anxieties and hopes into dramatic demands for educational reform. Although policy talk has sounded a millennial tone, the actual reforms have been gradual and incremental. Tinkering toward Utopia documents the dynamic tension between Americans' faith in education as a panacea and the moderate pace of change in educational practices. In this book, David Tyack and Larry Cuban explore some basic questions about the nature of educational reform. Why have Americans come to believe that schooling has regressed? Have educational reforms occurred in cycles, and if so, why? Why has it been so difficult to change the basic institutional patterns of schooling? What actually happened when reformers tried to reinvent schooling? Tyack and Cuban argue that the ahistorical nature of most current reform proposals magnifies defects and understates the difficulty of changing the system. Policy talk has alternated between lamentation and overconfidence. The authors suggest that reformers today need to focus on ways to help teachers improve instruction from the inside out instead of decreeing change by remote control, and that reformers must also keep in mind the democratic purposes that guide public education.

Integrated General Education
Integrated General Education

Author: Catherine M. Wehlburg

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2010-04-19

Total Pages: 125

ISBN-13: 0470626348

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General education has been an essential part of American higher education for a long time. Unfortunately, it is often seen as something to "get out of the way" so that the student can go on to take the more "important" courses within a chosen major. This volume changes that perception. Topics discussed include: Integrated General Education: A Brief Look Back Why are Outcomes So Difficult to Achieve? Making General Education Matter: Structures and Strategies Unifying the Undergraduate Curriculum Through Inquiry-Guided Learning University of the Pacific's Bookend Seminars on a Good Society Core Curriculum Revision at TCU: How Faculty Created and Are Maintaining the TCU Core Curriculum Creating an Integrative General Education: The Bates Experience Building an Integrated Student Learning Outcomes Assessment for General Education: Three Case Studies Meaningful General Education Assessment That is Integrated and Transformative Institutions of higher education have a responsibility to develop a meaningful general education curriculum that cultivates qualities of thinking, communication, and problem solving (to name a few of the general education goals that many institutions share). What is missing from many institutions, though, is the concept of integrating general education with the overall educational curriculum. If this is done, general education courses are no longer something to take quickly so they can be checked off; instead; they become part of the educational development of the student. This integration benefits the student, certainly, but also the larger society--baccalaureate graduates steeped in the liberal arts will become future leaders. Having been prepared with a broad knowledge base, our current students will be able to think more critically and make good use of information to solve problems that have not yet even been identified. This is the 121st volume of the Jossey-Bass higher education quarterly report series New Directions for Teaching and Learning, which offers a comprehensive range of ideas and techniques for improving college teaching based on the experience of seasoned instructors and the latest findings of educational and psychological researchers.

Applying Anthropology to General Education
Applying Anthropology to General Education

Author: Jennifer R. Wies

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2022-03-31

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 1000548031

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The current higher education policy and practice landscape is simultane-ously marked by uncertainty and hope, and nowhere are these tensions more present than in discussions and actions around general education. This volume uses an anthropological approach to contemplate ways of re-imagining general education for the 21st century and how faculty, teach-ers, administrators, and others can transform the educational endeavor to be holistic, comprehensive, and aligned with the needs of people and the planet in the decades to come. Included are analyses of general education concepts such as "diversity," case studies of general education and con-necting curricula, opportunities for faculty development, unique general education student populations, assessment strategies, and philosophical/ pedagogical challenges. Contributors make the case that far from receding from a central role in higher education, there is a need to strengthen general education curricula as key to the educational needs of students, for the skills and competencies they require in the workplace and for civic engagement.

Coming in from the Margins
Coming in from the Margins

Author: Connie Schroeder

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-07-03

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 1000978788

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Why is it critical for faculty development centers to reexamine their core mission today?The core argument of this book – that a necessary and significant role change is underway in faculty development – is a call for centers to merge the traditional responsibilities and services of the past several decades with a leadership role as organizational developers. Failing collectively to define and outline the dimensions and expertise of this new role puts centers at risk of not only marginalization, but of dissolution. When a TLC is busy and in demand, it is hard to believe that it may be, despite all the activity and palpable array of daily outcomes, institutionally marginalized. The actual and increasing potential of marginalization and center closings may help motivate this field to recognize the danger of complacency or remaining stuck in an old paradigm that exclusively defines itself as instructional development or supportive service. Proposing a newly defined organizational development role for academic and faculty developers and directors of teaching and learning centers, Coming in from the Margins examines how significant involvement in broader institutional change initiatives is becoming a critical aspect of this work. Although undefined and unrecognized as a significant dimension of this work, the organizational development role increasingly demanded of developers is far more attuned with the demand for change facing higher education than ever before. The book provides evidence-based research into what directors of centers are currently doing as organizational developers, and how they shape, influence, and plan institutional initiatives that intersect with teaching and learning. Directors of centers, their supervisors, and leaders in the field provide models, from a wide range of institutional contexts, as well as the strategies they have employed to successfully engage in significant organizational development. They also demonstrate how they handled the challenges that ensued. The strategies in each chapter provide a practical resource and guide for re-examining the mission and structure of existing centers, or for designing new centers of teaching and learning and, most importantly, to develop their role as change agents.The book covers such topics as: Center mission statements; Center staffing; Center advisory boards; committee involvement; unique expertise, knowledge and skills; embedding Centers in strategic planning; Center vision; organizational change processes; collaboration and partnerships; institutional priorities and initiatives; relationships with upper administration.

General Education and the Development of Global Citizenship in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mainland China
General Education and the Development of Global Citizenship in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mainland China

Author: Jun Xing

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 0415623979

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General Education has taken center stage in the greater China area (Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China) because of a number of important developments. First, globalization has created both opportunities and challenges for college students. When they graduate and enter the real world, they must have the cultural sensitivities and social skills, in addition to their professional training, to compete in a knowledge-based global economy. Equally significant for institutions of higher education, pressing global problems challenge traditional disciplines and demand new forms of learning that reshapes the boundaries of knowledge. In response to those rapidly changing dynamics, general education has taken an increasingly important role in undergraduate education. As the first English publication on the subject, this anthology brings together a distinguished group of General Education scholars and teachers from Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China.

Public Education Reform and Network Governance
Public Education Reform and Network Governance

Author: Philip Wing Keung Chan

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-03-05

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 0429863012

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This book is located in the field of education governance and sits amidst debates on public school reform in China. It examines how a top-down policy approach has been implemented from central government right down to the district level within the public education system in China. It shows the way networks support negotiation and bargaining at the district level which, in turn, influences the broader education policy of the central government. Using statistical data from education yearbooks, government documents analysis and interviews with main stakeholders in this policy arena, the book incorporates case studies from railway State-Owned Enterprise schools. Analysis of these indicates that the processes of formulating and implementing Chinese education policy can be characterised as a form of network governance, which coordinates actors, decision-making processes and stakeholders’ motivation to comply with collective decisions in Chinese education. Network governance acts as an effective and legitimate way of problem solving that assists policy implementation and education reform in China. By comparing two traditional modes of governance (governance through bureaucracy and the governance through markets), this book shows the network mode of governance in Chinese education is more powerful and significant, especially since the negotiated results among actors in the policy community are favourable.

The Death and Life of the Great American School System
The Death and Life of the Great American School System

Author: Diane Ravitch

Publisher: Basic Books (AZ)

Published: 2010-03-02

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 0465014917

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Discusses how school choice, misapplied standards of accountability, the No Child Left Behind mandate, and the use of a corporate model have all led to a decline in public education and presents arguments for a return to strong neighborhood schools and quality teaching.