A sweet spot is a place where a combination of factors comes together to produce the best results with greatest efficiency. As school systems around the world are increasing expectations for what students learn and what educators do to support their learning, they must aim for the sweet spot to achieve maximum results for their efforts. When…

The aim of the study is to analyze comparatively 2002 (previous) and 2006 (current) Early Childhood Curricula with regard to concepts and attainments associated with environmental education (EE). 2002 and 2006 preschool curricula were firstly retrieved from the web-site of Board of Education and then subjected to content analysis across 41…

The purpose of the study was to construct a chronological history and analysis of the published educational objectives for the Introductory Sociology survey course in the colleges and universities of the United States from 1892 to 1957, as reflected by objective statements from selected peer-reviewed periodicals. Because of the gradual…

The purpose of the proposed study was to construct a chronological history and analysis of the published learning objectives for the Introductory Sociology survey course in the universities of the United States from 1954-2008, as reflected by objective statements from selected peer-reviewed periodicals. Because of the gradual transformational…

In this essay Malott makes a case for a Marxist reading of education's role in expanding and reproducing capitalist societies. In the process he challenges the proposition that cognitive capitalism has fundamentally transformed the way in which capitalism operates. That is, rather than being guided by an internal capitalist logic, proponents of…

Background: In the context of Cyprus' accession to the European Union (2004) and a noteworthy increase in immigration towards Cyprus, the Cypriot state was called upon to build more complete and coherent policies addressing culturally diverse educational settings. Cypriot education has historically enforced the nation-building project. However,…

This paper is concerned with the aspect of intercultural understanding as a component in the revised Key Stage 3 (ages 11-13) Modern Foreign Languages curriculum in England. It critically examines the extent to which recent initiatives have been conducive to promoting the development of intercultural understanding (IU) amongst pupils at Key Stage…

The cause of continuing education has gained significant strides in China after the advent of Reform and Opening Up, but it is still the weakest link in the current system of education. The "National Medium- and Long-Term Educational Reform and Development Guideline (2010-20)" (hereafter abbreviated as the "Guideline") has…

When bivalent stimuli (i.e., stimuli with features for two different tasks) appear occasionally, performance is slower on subsequent univalent stimuli. This "bivalency effect" reflects an adjustment of cognitive control arising from the more demanding context created by bivalent stimuli. So far, it has been investigated only on task…

When students have varying prior knowledge, personalized instruction is desirable. One way to personalize instruction is by using adaptive e-learning to offer training of varying complexity. In this study, we developed a web-based adaptive tutor to teach PCR primer design: the PCR Tutor. We used part of the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (the…

The introduction of an Australian curriculum is likely to have a widespread and long-term impact on schools, teachers and students, and yet there has been a swift and an almost unquestioning acceptance of its introduction by the Australian public and by educators. This paper will use theoretical frameworks informed by Gramsci's cultural hegemony…

Since the seventeenth century, there have been two narratives about modernity in general and America in particular. The author uses the term "narrative" to include (a) facts, (b) arguments, and most important, (c) a larger vision of how one sees the world and chooses to engage the world. The first and originalist narrative is the Lockean Liberty…

The article attempts to clarify the appeal to the Benedictine ideal that Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) makes in "The Aims of Education and Other Essays" as a way to renew the life of the spirit in education. In particular, the essay will consider St. Benedict's three central themes of Whitehead's philosophy: freedom and discipline, the…

Background: Photovoice is one method that enables an educator to view an experience from a student's perspective. This study examined how teachers might use photovoice during an informal learning experience to understand the students' experiences and experiential gain. Design and methods: Participants in this study consisted of six students, three…

This study attempts to reveal the process of teacher leadership (TL) and its implications for teacher education. Two rounds of interviews, including focus group interviews with six chosen schools in Taiwan, were conducted to reveal the process. It was found that the development of TL is a stretching process from the key leader to core members,…