Students nowadays are getting mixed messages about the meaning of education. Evidence has emerged that what colleges have been saying to students were not aligned with what colleges have been doing for students. Students found that the values that seemed to drive policy shifted from department to department, course to course, term to term. As a…

For more than twenty-five years, field education programs have been the primary pedagogical strategy by which contextual (practical) theological training has occurred at most Orthodox theological schools in America. These programs are based on a developmental approach, with students progressing from observation to participation to actual…

How to civilize our young people? Enforcing a pedagogy of virtue is a waste of time. PC curricula reek of Stalinism. Nor does it make much sense to teach popular culture. The media perform that civilizing function all too well. The goal is to impart wisdom, but you can't know it all, so we talk about it as best we can. Fortunately, writes Robert…

Socrates taught that contemplation of beauty and knowledge reveals cosmic harmony and the rhythms of the universe. De Tocqueville, however, observed that a modern democracy places more immediate demands on its citizens, preoccupying them with utility and the fear of physical deprivation. Carson Holloway reminds us that liberal education for its…

Purpose: Over the past few decades, several theories and models have evolved to guide health education practice. Some of these models are participatory and democratic; nevertheless, much health education practice is based on achieving goals established by "health authorities," which are called here the didactic model. The purpose of this paper is…

It is widely held that personal autonomy is a quality of character at which educators ought to aim. In this paper I argue that those who hold this view are misguided. I identify two ordinary senses of autonomy, and a range of technical senses currently popular with philosophers, and show that none of them constitutes a defensible educational aim.…

International organisations were the main proponents of Lifelong Learning when the concept was first developed in the early 1970s. Although different organisations used different labels--Lifelong Learning, recurrent education, education permanente--they all emphasised that learning is a lifelong process and that all education should be organised…

The US Commission on the Future of Higher Education, at a meeting in San Diego in February 2006, appeared to reach a consensus on the need to focus on three or four big ideas and not get mired in minutia. The Commission members discussed the need for increased transparency and accountability in higher education and praised the role played by the…

A semester-long ethnography study was carried out to investigate project-based learning in a graduate software engineering course through the implementation of an Open-Source Software Development (OSSD) learning environment, which featured authentic projects, learning community, cognitive apprenticeship, and technology affordances. The study…

Higher education in New Jersey has arrived at a decisive moment. After twenty years of declining State funding and increased tuitions, the fortunes of citizens and the state hang in the balance. Student access to an affordable college education and the economic prosperity of the state are at stake. Increased funding is essential, but so too are…

Research in the area of student engagement has shown that the more engaged minority students are with faculty and staff, with other students, and with the subject matter they study, the more likely they are to learn and persist toward achieving their academic goals. Secondary data from the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE)…

In an effort to explore the impact of performance incentives in education, the National Center on Performance Incentives (NCPI) partnered with the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) to conduct the Project on Incentives in Teaching, or POINT. The study examines the effects on student outcomes of paying eligible teachers bonuses of up to…

When charter schools first arrived on the American educational scene, few observers suspected that within two decades thousands of these schools would be established, serving almost a million and a half children across forty states. The widespread popularity of these schools, and of the charter movement itself, speaks to the unique and chronic…

This paper provides information about the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test[R] (FCAT). The purpose of the exam is to: (1) Determine prospective high school graduates' mastery of the state curriculum; (2) Encourage districts and schools to identify and serve students at risk of academic failure; (3) Provide data to state policymakers on student…

This paper provides information about Maryland's High School Assessment, an end-of-course exam tied to content standards. The purpose of the exam is to: (1) Determine prospective high school graduates' knowledge and skill levels relative to those needed for entry-level employment; (2) Determine prospective high school graduates' knowledge and…