Purpose: The purposes of this study were to investigate and describe how elementary teachers in exited Program Improvement-Safe Harbor schools acquire student achievement data through assessments, the strategies and reflections utilized to make sense of the data to improve student achievement, ensure curriculum and instructional goals are aligned,…

In the age of standardized testing, science and social studies are not given the same priority as mathematics and reading in the curriculum of United States schools. High stakes testing is viewed as having heavily biased schools toward teaching tested subjects and away from less frequently tested subjects. This paper is premised on the notion that…

This article compares the pre-vocational education curriculum plans in lower-secondary schools in Germany and Mainland China, and their implementation. Choosing the curricula of certain school types in two selected regions in both countries, this research first carries out a content analysis of the curriculum plans, using the criteria developed…

Purpose: The objective of this paper was to examine key hindering and facilitating factors in schools during the first stage of the curriculum reform (2001-2006) in Hong Kong and to identify key strategies to address these challenges. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 150 primary and 120 secondary schools with 7,869 key stakeholders…

In this study, the characteristics of teachers that motivate their implementation of reform curriculum, and the factors that influence the teachers' success in implementing the curriculum are investigated. In particular, teachers' internal struggles, frustrations, collegiality, and classroom successes during the implementation of the reform…

This article examines how interest groups in Hong Kong have politicised national history, an unpopular school subject, for their own political ends and allied themselves with the PRC against the SAR government and its policy of not making it a single, independent, compulsory core subject in the school curriculum. The article argues that this has…

Faculty development programs are critical to the implementation and support of curriculum innovation. In this case study, the authors present lessons learned from ten years of experience in faculty development programs created to support innovation in technology enhanced learning. Stages of curriculum innovation are matched to stages of faculty…

The IS 2010 Model Curriculum Guidelines were developed to provide recommendations for standardized information systems curricula while simultaneously allowing for customization within individual programs. While some studies have examined program adherence to the IS 2010 Model Curriculum Guidelines, a more detailed analysis of IS curriculum…

School change is always local and dependent on the kinds of resources that are available. In this paper we explore the notion that knowledge is an important resources for vernacular educational reform. In order to explore this contention, we use the lens of cross-curricular changes undertaken by English schools in receipt of funding from Creative…

This article reports on a study of secondary English teachers' perceptions of and implementation of the New English Curriculum Reform in China initiated in 2009. Ethnography and triangulated data collection methods were employed to gather information about three senior secondary English teachers' interpretations of the New Curriculum and their…

In today's increasingly interconnected world, it has never been more imperative for American schools to incorporate global education into their curriculum. As we prepare students for their future roles as global citizens who must confront a whole host of new challenges, it is critical that our students understand other cultures and people and…

We are living in a world risk society where different forms of risk have become a part of daily life, such as energy crisis, financial crisis, global terrorism, and ecological crisis. Beck (World risk society, Polity Press, Cambridge, "1999") argues that knowing about "unawareness" might provide another way for us to reconsider the problems of the…

The focus of Ontario's educational reform is literacy and numeracy, and there is a move to teach literacy in all subject areas. Teachers are also to include character education and environmental awareness in instructional planning. Curriculum guidelines direct teachers to teach cross-disciplinary core concepts--Big Ideas such as change, systems,…

10 Great Curricula is a collection of stories written by educators who have come to understand curricula differently as a result of their engagement with a graduate course and its instructor. The book represents the best of what can be found in teaching and learning, in general, and in the quest for meaningful ways to understand curricula in…

The design of this study was a multiple case study conducted to examine the knowledge, pedagogical principles, and challenges involved in providing engineering-oriented professional development for teachers at the secondary school level. A set of criteria was used to identify five representative projects for analysis in the US. A variety of tools…