This chapter explores the dynamics of generational cohort differences and their potential influence on the understandings, emphases, and applications of student development theory.

It is understandable that parents, policy makers, educators, etc. want to know how schools are functioning. Extensive resources are expended on the educational enterprise and it is only reasonable that the impact of those resources be determined. However, determining the amount of change in students' skills and knowledge is not easy. Further,…

Although there is widespread agreement on the importance of ethics instruction in business education, there is not agreement on the best approach or timing of instruction. This article uses J. O. Prochaska and DiClemente's transtheoretical model of change as the basis for a developmental model of student readiness for learning about ethics. By…

Parents of today's college students have much on their minds: paying for college, coping with their children's history of depression, ensuring safety, managing complex roommate relationships, and emphasizing academic success, to name just a few. Parental involvement has reportedly grown over the past few years, owing to many contributing factors:…

Background: This paper is based on a graduate course entitled, "Toward an integrative approach to equity in higher education" offered at a Canadian university for the first time in 2002. The course attempted to integrate critical pedagogy theories with notions of embodied learning in order to develop an integrative praxis of educational…

In this millennium, educators are faced with a number of issues that Dr. Maria Montessori could not have predicted. Today, students are different from the children Dr. Montessori observed in her "Casa dei Bambini." They are influenced by technology in all its forms. Some suffer from medical problems such as complex food allergies, which wreak…

This monograph seeks to inform faculty, staff, administrators, and students about the nature of and structure in doctoral programs that lead to doctoral student development. It is accomplished through succeeding chapters, focusing first on an overview of existing student development theory and then on the structure of doctoral education and its…

Though it is being widely argued that expanding young people's capacity to learn is a viable and desirable goal of education, it it not always clear what this means, how it is to be achieved, and how the effectiveness of interventions is to be assessed. It is argued that the capacity to learn should be interpreted as a portmanteau term that…

This chapter reiterates the need for attention to the journey of self-authorship and suggests next steps for institutions and educators.

Traditional education, employing lectures or telecommunicative instruction methods, has been very effective in providing topical facts. However, the development of student skills and thinking ability require higher levels of instruction and more opportunity to practice and apply acquired knowledge. As students progress through a particular…

Marzano (2003) identified 11 factors that positively influence student achievement. Those factors can be divided into three categories: school-level practices, teacher-level practices, and student-level characteristics. Interestingly, Marzano (2000) found that school- and teacher-level influences account for only 20% of the variance in student…

Technical thinking is defined as an aptitude, ingenuity, and affliction for solving practical problems through experience. From the beginning of civilization such thinking has been a significant part of human existence. Learning associated with it is a natural instinct for most people, young and old, who work in a technical field, pursue a…

The director of a small career academy of the arts in a public high school reflects on the conflicting demands to establish a college-preparatory program adhering to state standards and to facilitate the personal growth, artistic discovery, and democratic empowerment of teens. By narrating experiences that go to the heart of philosophical discord,…

The author relates how the idea behind the school he founded came from events that transpired in the incarceration of a 16-year-old client, Eddie. Eddie, who was charged with trespassing and stealing, pleaded to the author that he wanted "a program" instead of going to jail. However, the court found him guilty and sent him to jail. Years later,…

The Standards of Academic Progress system at Miami-Dade Community College is explored. Elements of this system are discussed: reduction of course loan with appropriate educational interventions, some period of separation from the college, two-track monitoring system, and administrative review of all students at the end of each term. (CT)