Changes in education systems across Europe are a response to perceived needs to improve academic performance. The recent workforce remodelling agenda in England (2003-2005) reflected a growing concern that centralisation and the associated deskilling of teachers had gone too far. The resultant restructuring of the work of teachers, giving roles…

This paper reported on the findings of research into innovation in e-learning design and assessment through the development and implementation of online learning activities (e-tivities). The focus of the study was on Carpe Diem as a process to enable academic course teams to seize 2 days to design and embed pedagogically appropriate e-tivities…

The Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA), located in Aurora Illinois, is a public, three-year residential high school for students who are academically talented in mathematics and/or science. The mission statement of IMSA is to "ignite and nurture creative, ethical, scientific minds that advance the human condition." This…

An innovative crisis intervention programme was created at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Canada in order to provide emergency assessments for youth presenting with mental health crises. The current investigation presents an overview of the programme and examines the emergency staff's perception and satisfaction with it.…

This paper describes an empirical study that addresses the question of how higher education institutions can disseminate effectively the outcomes of projects that seek to achieve large-scale change in teaching and learning. Traditionally, dissemination of innovation and good practice is strongly advocated within universities, but little…

This paper describes the design of the curriculum for a Master of Engineering programme in civil engineering at University College Dublin. The revised programme was established to meet the requirements of the Bologna process and this paper specifically considers the design of a new, second-cycle master's component of the programme. In addition to…

Technology use permeates virtually all aspects of twenty-first century society, though its integration in early childhood settings and recognition as a developmentally appropriate practice remains problematic. A position is taken that education professionals may be "missing the boat" by not embracing technology usage as a developmentally…

This article summarizes a major e-Learning project recently funded by the National Science Council of Taiwan and envisions some of the future research directions in this area. This project intends to initiate the "Center for excellence in e-Learning Sciences (CeeLS): i[superscript 4] future learning environment" at the National Taiwan…

The authors believe that exposure to cultural diversity may force children (or even adults) to form new neural connections in the brain to be able to sufficiently interpret meaning in things to which they are not accustomed. Once formed, these new neural connections may be at one's permanent disposal to assist in a myriad of potential cognitive…

This study operationalizes pedagogical practices using classroom observation data collected in twenty-eight bioengineering courses at a southeastern research university over five semesters. Using an index that distinguishes pedagogy reflecting principles of the "How People Learn" framework and pedagogy representing traditional,…

Second Life is a three-dimensional, multi-user virtual environment that has attracted particular attention for its instructional potential in professional development and higher education settings. This article describes Second Life in general and explores the benefits and challenges of using it for teaching and learning.

In recent years, playful methods of learning have almost disappeared from school classrooms, and active, creative, extended playtimes during recess, at home, and in neighborhoods have also greatly diminished. This disappearance of play is especially unfortunate because it is happening at the very time that professionals in many scientific,…

A recent study by O'Donnell and Sauer (2008) indicated, that over time, the benefit of launching new majors to reduce freshman attrition dissipated. In 2004, new majors had a significant effect on reducing attrition. By 2007, however, these same new majors were no longer significant predictors of attrition. What happened between 2004 and 2007 to…

Chapin Hall partnered with the W. Clement and Jessie V. Stone Foundation to host a convening for the Stone Foundation Education Grantees in October of 2008. The purpose of the convening was to gather key leaders in the education field for a discussion of the lessons learned in their work and how these lessons inform future practice and policy…

Authentic design commonly involves teams of designers collaborating on ill-structured problems over extended time periods. Nonetheless, design has been studied extensively in sequestered settings, limiting our understanding of design as process and especially of learning design process. This study addresses potential shortcomings of such studies…