This mixed methods study focused on the perceptions of faculty currently instructing online. The sample was taken from the tri-state area of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, and consisted of a random selection of instructors teaching at least one online course in the fall of 2008. Of the 300 people surveyed via a web-based survey tool, 111…

Purpose/Objectives: Study objectives were to identify the functional areas, competencies, knowledge, and skills needed by effective school nutrition (SN) assistants in the current SN environment, and determine at what point the SN assistant should be able to know/perform the knowledge/skill statement, at time of hire or after training. Methods: In…

Instructionism refers to educational practices that are teacher-focused, skill-based, product-oriented, non-interactive, and highly prescribed. Constructivism refers to educational practices that are student-focused, meaning-based, process-oriented, interactive, and responsive to student interest. There is disagreement regarding which curricular…

The Inquiry into the Future for Lifelong Learning proposes a strategy for lifelong learning for the next quarter-century. In this article, four of the Inquiry's commissioners--Leisha Fullick, John Field, Teresa Rees and Helen Gilchrist--reflect on some of the report's key themes. Fullick discusses the role of "local responsiveness" in…

This descriptive research study reported on Georgia's secondary level (grades 6-12) technology education programs capability to incorporate engineering concepts and/or engineering design into their curriculum. Participants were middle school and high school teachers in the state of Georgia who currently teach technology education. Participants…

The present study aimed to investigate the current music practices and teachers' needs for teaching music in public preschools of South Korea. The data were obtained from the public preschools in South Korea, where 66.7 percent (n = 606) of the total sample (N = 908) responded. The online survey consisted of 42 questions: Likert-type scales,…

This article explores mother tongue awareness among several Brazilian Amerindian societies in contrast with the perception of the importance of the vernacular according to policy makers and academics. The perception of the vernacular as important is discussed in the light of continuing debate among Brazil's educators concerning appropriate…

Active-duty personnel, reservists, veterans, and their spouses or dependents represent 30% of the 10,000 students at the University of West Florida (UWF). With base realignment activities, a rise in the number of troops returning from deployments, and an increase in military-affiliated students on campus, the needs of veterans and their families…

This paper uses Ireland--one of Europe's most rapidly changing societies--as a case study and examines progress towards an inclusive education system. It explores policy and progress on developing an inclusive system under a number of key headings: social class, ethnicity, gender and disability. On the basis of analysis of official statistics and…

In October 2006, the California Men's Colony (CMC) in San Luis Obispo, faced with staff recruitment and retention difficulties, took an innovative step to utilize long-term sentenced inmates as peer mentors and primary counselors to lead their prison-based therapeutic community (TC) program. The program was designed, developed, and implemented…

This paper looks at the diffusion and applications of mobile phone technology in Asia and Africa, compared with North America. It indicates that Asian distance education can be the global leader in the development of educational uses for the mobile phone; and it considers the potential for mobile learning in Africa and other developing regions.…

The legislative shift towards an inclusive education policy in Cyprus has allegedly been fragmented and contradictory. The textual hybridity of the ostensibly more inclusive policy documents prevents the realization of an inclusive discourse. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is proposed as an emancipatory research tool that has the potential to…

Educational needs assessments (hereafter NAs) are inattentive to cost considerations and are frequently dominated by elite stakeholder groups. In this article I make a case for adopting a cost-utility approach, illustrating the argument with data generated in a NA of central library services in a Canadian school district. Using survey data from…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to set out to evaluate the financial education needs of ethnic minority SMEs in the West Midlands region of the United Kingdom. Design/methodology/approach: A postal survey was used to investigate the financial needs of owner/managers in 64 ethnic minority SMEs and a control sample of 23 non-ethnic SMEs.…

Migrant English as a Second Language (ESL) has been an important form of rural adult education in the United States for decades. This chapter provides a national and historical overview of rural and migrant ESL. The educational needs of the growing population of seasonal, migrant agricultural workers are discussed and situated in relation to the…