Describes the challenges and rewards of teaching social work, noting mistakes and successes in his approach to the task/opportunity. Using a non-BSW class in community organization practice as the template, he assesses the adaptations needed to teach students with widely diverse academic backgrounds, emphasizing the importance of careful and…

As the authors approached a unit on magnets with their first-grade students, they decided to incorporate more inquiry into their district's learning module, Magnets: Elementary Science and Technology Module for Primary Grades (State College Area School District 1993). By restructuring their lessons, using science talks, and listening carefully to…

The Pahlavi Dynasty (1941-1979) was crucial in the modernization of Iranian history, particularly its higher education. However, the goal of education was "an aristocracy of culture", producing small numbers of technocrats, but not nurturing thoughtful and critical individuals. Rote learning was dominant, and the curriculum was imposed…

Many public-university administrators are watching from the sidelines as the nation's credit markets seize up, trying to assess the impact on universities' and state bonding agencies' ability to issue debt. Already, California and Massachusetts have asked for federal help to cope with bills because municipal-bond markets remain largely closed.…

In our day-to-day striving, dissonance litters obstacles along the path of personal development and these obstacles cause pain and hinder growth. An environment that is relatively free from dissonance should foster personal development and enhance growth. The Dissonance Test-Revised (DISS-R), a test derived from second force psychology, was…

Most people picture "strategic planning" as endless meetings spent doing SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analyses, crafting vision and mission statements, and developing goals and action plans. Few look forward to the experience or reflect back on it with pleasure. In this article, the author describes how he…

The aim of this study was to gain an understanding of the dynamics of motivation in socially shared learning from both individual and group perspectives. Higher education students' motivation was analysed in the context of collaborative learning tasks, applying quantitative and qualitative methods. The research questions were: (1) what kind of…

Like many other colleges and universities, Hofstra University now requires each department to create a "mission statement." Then, on the basis of this statement, a set of more specific curricular goals and objectives have to be created and, finally, a set of quantitative, behavioral criteria by which to assess the department's efforts. This new…

This ultimate guide to teaching strategies gives you 20 of the most reliable teaching strategies for every grade and subject, with dozens of variations and clear steps and examples for how to implement them. To help you choose the right strategy, the authors include a Strategic Dashboard that makes it easy for you to match your strategy to your…

Children's developing understanding that words have conventional meanings and objects have conventional functions emerges in parent-child activity and conversation. Drawing on family conversations in everyday settings, the chapter explores an apparent paradox between a global analysis of conventionality as stable shared knowledge and a local…

In a presidential address prepared for the 2006 Council on Anthropology and Education (CAE) meeting, I argue that the new mission statement for CAE represents not a new direction for the organization, but simply a shift in emphasis, albeit an important and timely shift.

Virginia Tech has decided to count gifts to a memorial fund for victims of the April 16 shootings toward its goal of raising $1-billion in a capital campaign. Higher-education fund-raising experts agree that counting the memorial-fund contributions toward the total does not break common donation-reporting guidelines. Many big college fund-raising…

Change is hard. Teachers and students live with this reality everyday. Even harder than change is transformation, the kind of change that alters who a person is forever. Yet transformation is exactly what happens in the presence of powerful teaching and learning, especially in English classrooms where everyone uses language to negotiate new…

Thomas Friedman's best-selling "The World is Flat" has exerted much influence in the west by providing both an accessible analysis of globalization and its economic and social effects, and a powerful cultural metaphor for globalization. In this review, we more closely examine Friedman's notion of the social contract, the moral center of his…

This paper discusses the principles of an effective faculty evaluation system that are repeatedly recommended in the literature. These principles include the following: (1) clarify institutional goals; (2) decide on the purposes of the data to be collected; (3) use pilot programs when appropriate; (4) significantly involve participants in the…