The "NMC Horizon Report: 2012 K-12 Edition", examines emerging technologies for their potential impact on and use in teaching, learning, and creative inquiry within the environment of pre-college education. While there are many local factors affecting the practice of education, there are also issues that transcend regional boundaries and…

Since its opening three years ago, Oasis Skateboard Factory (OSF), founded by teacher Craig Morrison, has attracted considerable media exposure and received a Ken Spencer Award from the CEA for its innovative program. OSF is one of three programs offered by Oasis Alternative Secondary School, one of 22 alternative secondary schools of the Toronto…

There is a paradox at the heart of the education debate on building the best generation of teachers. Ministers criticise teachers for not raising standards. Yet their answer is to change the governance structures of school. Why not address the real challenge--how to raise the status and quality of teaching in this country? It matters far more what…

Teachers' professional development is a key to any educational change and is critical when leading and assimilating change, such as introducing standards into classrooms. A national professional development (PD) framework was developed for the implementation of science standards published by the Israeli Ministry of Education, which was activated…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to report the outcome of a city-wide survey of teenagers' views on their health, and compare this with the outcomes of a science-oriented health intervention called LifeLab, a hospital-based classroom aimed at developing teenagers' attitudes towards their health and that of their future children.…

E-service-learning (electronic service-learning)--online course instruction and/or service--holds massive potential to transform both service-learning and online learning by freeing service-learning from geographical constraints and by equipping online learning with a powerful and much-needed tool to promote engagement. Students are increasingly…

Training paraprofessionals such as teachers is one of many significant challenges facing Afghanistan's educational system. This case study focuses on the innovations offered in that regard by BRAC, a large NGO based in Bangladesh that brought its many years of development experience to Afghanistan in 2002 and established itself there as the…

This article discusses the relationship between policy, research and practice in the Singapore education landscape in response to Hargreaves and Shirley's arguments of Fourth Way principles of educational change. Examples of recent policy developments in Singapore are used to illustrate the interaction between judicial uses of research data and…

Education in the United States is entering a very exciting moment. For the first time, all of the digital stars are aligning n such a way that the technology is available to design truly transformational learning experiences. The ubiquity of inexpensive and powerful mobile devices is creating the potential for all students to learn at any time and…

This exploration into competency-based innovation at the school, district, and state levels suggests that competency-based pathways are a re-engineering of this nation's education system around learning--a re-engineering designed for success in which failure is no longer an option. Competency-based approaches build upon standards reforms, offering…

In 1896, John Dewey opened the Laboratory School at the University of Chicago. While much is known about this legendary school and its founder, the teachers whose daily work brought the school to life remain mostly anonymous. This essay attempts to remedy this historical invisibility by investigating four of the Laboratory School teachers--Anna…

Parents and students recognize the value of a college degree. Increasingly, they are borrowing large sums of money to invest in the future. Their choices about how to save for college, where to attend college, how much and from where to borrow for college, and how to repay their loans, have grown more complex. Yet families work with incomplete…

This article discusses how Watkinson School head John Bracker was able to accomplish the school's plan of having a new science building that would meet all of their needs: innovative building that offers a range of eco-friendly features, an inspiring learning environment, and even better, the right price. Bracker contemplates on a structure that…

Although traditional departments of anatomy are vanishing from medical school rosters, anatomical education still remains an important part of the professional training of physicians. It is of some interest to examine whether history can teach us anything about how to reform modern anatomy. Are there lessons to be learned from the history of…

In this article, the author shares what life is like at Kaplan Higher Education and discusses the strengths of a proprietary institution like Kaplan. The author used to work at the Community College of Vermont, California State University, and the UNESCO. He mentions that as a professional and a citizen, he wants to be part of an effort to…