"I have been waiting for this book for a decade. In an age in which the national debate on school reform is concerned principally with tactics and process, this volume focuses on the most important of all questions. What is the purpose of school? How do we know if a school is working? The authors are the most highly regarded names in education. This is an important book for anyone interested in schooling in America today." -- Arthur Levine, president, Teachers College, Columbia University
"The approaches outlined in this volume will help expand the narrow focus on academic success to include psychological well-being for students and educators alike. It is a must-read for anyone interested in how positive outcomes such as life satisfaction, positive emotion, and meaning and purpose can be optimized in the educational settings." -- Judith Moskowitz, PhD MPH, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, USA, IPPA President 2019-2021 This open access handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the growing field of positive education, featuring a broad range of theoretical, applied, and practice-focused chapters from leading international experts. It demonstrates how positive education offers an approach to understanding learning that blends academic study with life skills such as self-awareness, emotion regulation, healthy mindsets, mindfulness, and positive habits, grounded in the science of wellbeing, to promote character development, optimal functioning, engagement in learning, and resilience. The handbook offers an in-depth understanding and critical consideration of the relevance of positive psychology to education, which encompasses its theoretical foundations, the empirical findings, and the existing educational applications and interventions. The contributors situate wellbeing science within the broader framework of education, considering its implications for teacher training, education and developmental psychology, school administration, policy making, pedagogy, and curriculum studies. This landmark collection will appeal to researchers and practitioners working in positive psychology, educational and school psychology, developmental psychology, education, counselling, social work, and public policy. Margaret (Peggy) L. Kern is Associate Professor at the Centre for Positive Psychology at the University of Melbourne's Graduate School of Education, Australia. Dr Kern is Founding Chair of the Education Division of the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA). You can find out more about Dr Kern's work at www.peggykern.org. Michael L. Wehmeyer is Ross and Mariana Beach Distinguished Professor of Special Education; Chair of the Department of Special Education; and Director and Senior Scientist, Beach Center on Disability, at the University of Kansas, United States. Dr Wehmeyer is Publications Lead for the Education Division of the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA). He has published more than 450 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters and is an author or editor of 42 texts. .
The field of Games is rapidly expanding, prompting institutions throughout the world to create game development programs and courses focusing on educational games. As a result, games have also become a hot topic in the area of educational technology research. This increased interest is due to the technological advancement of digital games and the fact that a new, digital generation is emerging with a strong gaming background. Games: Purpose and Potential in Education focuses on the issues of incorporating games into education and instructional design. Ideas of identity development, gender diversity, motivation, and integrating instructional design within game development are addressed since each of these areas is important in the field of instructional design and can have a significant impact on learning. This volume brings together leading experts, researchers, and instructors in the field of gaming and explores current topics in gaming and simulations, available resources, and the future of the field.
At the beginning of the 21st century museums are challenged on a number of fronts. The prioritisation of learning in museums in the context of demands for social justice and cultural democracy combined with cultural policy based on economic rationalism forces museums to review their educational purposes, redesign their pedagogies and account for their performance. The need to theorise learning and culture for a cultural theory of learning is very pressing. If culture acts as a process of signification, a means of producing meaning that shapes worldviews, learning in museums and other cultural organisations is potentially dynamic and profound, producing self-identities. How is this complexity to be ‘measured’? What can this ‘measurement’ reveal about the character of museum-based learning? The calibration of culture is an international phenomenon, and the measurement of the outcomes and impact of learning in museums in England has provided a detailed case study. Three national evaluation studies were carried out between 2003 and 2006 based on the conceptual framework of Generic Learning Outcomes. Using this revealing data Museums and Education reveals the power of museum pedagogy and as it does, questions are raised about traditional museum culture and the potential and challenge for museum futures is suggested.
This book invites a conversation among stakeholders of public education and conveys the need for a common vision for America’s public schools. Amy Fast argues that we have never had a clear purpose for our schools and that now, more than ever, educators in America ache for a more inspiring purpose than simply improving results on standardized assessments. Fast asserts how focusing on the mission instead of simply the mandates and measures is how real change occurs. Until we have a common and transparent purpose that serves to inspire those in the trenches of the work, reform in public education will continue to flounder. Through the examination of our past and current priorities for American schools, Fast uncovers a nobler purpose that will intrinsically move educators as well as students to be inspired in their work. In turn, it is this inspiration—not another silver bullet reform—that will lead to meaningful change in society.
Considers teacher education as an important aspects of the teaching profession and demonstrates why it is so important for higher education institutions to value their teacher educators' professional knowledge. The book demonstrates how teaching about teaching knowledge pedagogy is vital to the development of quality in teacher education and how this knowledge needs to be articulated and communicated throughout the teaching profession, both in schools and universities.
"This is a timely book, enabling teachers to reflect critically upon their existing work-place practices, which have been so powerfully shaped by the target culture and the logic of performativity that has underpinned it for two decades. More importantly it will empower primary school teachers to play a more active role in effecting curriculum and pedagogical change in their schools and classrooms." Professor John Elliot, School of Education, University of East Anglia, UK This book encourages you to question the existing culture of schooling, its principles and practices. Current practices have been shaped and dominated by a target led and outcomes driven agenda. The book addresses some of the conflicts that arise in the demand for performance on the one hand and teachers' responsiveness to children and their learning on the other. Sue Cox sets out to show how change might be based on clear understandings of how children learn and how teachers contribute to that learning. She does this by providing frameworks for change and shows how, from these perspectives, participation is key to children's learning. She then goes on to explore the implications for teachers working collaboratively with children in areas such as interaction, curriculum and assessment. An underlying aim of the book is to provide the tools for teachers to develop a principled approach to what they do and how they think in order to challenge some entrenched practices and thinking. This book provides thoughtful reading and promotes reflective thinking for primary teachers, teachers in training and researchers with insight into new ways of thinking about and developing primary education.
How is it possible that both university graduates and unfilled job openings are both at record-breaking highs? Our world has changed. New and emerging occupations in every industry now require a combination of academic knowledge and technical ability. With rising education costs, mounting student debt, fierce competition for jobs, and the oversaturation of some academic majors in the workforce, we need to once again guide students towards personality-aligned careers and not just into college. Extensively researched, (Re)Defining the Goal deconstructs the prevalent "one-size-fits-all" education agenda. The author provides a fresh perspective, replicable strategies, and outlines six proven steps to help students secure a competitive advantage in the new economy. Gain a new paradigm and the right resources to help students avoid the pitfalls of unemployment, or underemployment, after graduation.
Universities were once largely insular institutions whose purview extended no further than the campus gates. Not anymore. Today's universities have evolved into multifaceted organizations with complex connections to government, business, and the community. This thought-provoking book by Harold Shapiro, former president of both Princeton University and the University of Michigan, and Chairman of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission under President Bill Clinton, explores the role the modern university should play as an ethical force and societal steward. Based on the 2003 Clark Kerr lectures, A Larger Sense of Purpose draws from Shapiro's twenty-five years of experience leading major research universities and takes up key topics of debate in higher education. What are the nature and objectives of a liberal education? How should universities address the increasing commercialization not only of intercollegiate sports but of education and research? What are the university's responsibilities for the moral education of students? The book begins with an expanded history of the modern research institution followed by essays on ethics, the academic curriculum, the differences between private and public higher education, the future of intellectual property rights, and the changing relationship between the nation's universities and the for-profit sector. Shapiro calls for universities to be more accountable morally as well as academically. He urges scientists not only to educate others about the potential and limitations of science but also to acknowledge the public's distress over the challenges presented by the very success of the scientific enterprise. He advocates for a more intimate connection between professional training and the liberal arts--in the hope that future doctors, lawyers, and business executives will be educated in ethics and the social sciences as well as they are in anatomy, torts, and leveraged buyouts. Candid, timely, and provocative, A Larger Sense of Purpose demands the attention of not only those in academics but of anyone who shares an interest in the soul of education.
This timely book offers the why, how and what of a purpose-driven university, utilising cases, research, concepts and a framework which can be implemented in any university interested in making a difference. This book tells the stories of purpose-driven universities and other organisations.
