There has been growing enthusiasm for English learning in China in recent years. This development, along with the introduction of a new English curriculum in 2001, has brought a breakthrough in English language teaching (ELT) in China. In the new curriculum, the traditional emphasis on grammar and vocabulary is replaced by a focus on the…

As in other educational programs, scholarship programs offer mentoring to the recipients. In order to cultivate the maximum benefit, each recipient needs to be guided and appropriately advised, first to achieve the goals of the program and secondly, to benefit themselves from the scholarship. The purpose of the article is to investigate this…

Evidence suggests that dual language (DL) programs have the potential to foster both significant academic achievement and increased cultural awareness in the students they serve. As such, DL programs offer both language majority and language minority learners the opportunity to reach advanced levels of academic achievement. Nonetheless, the…

The philosophy of schooling and the pedagogy of schooling over the past two to three centuries has been in a state of constant flux. As we enter the 21st century, the age old debate between religious education pundits and those who advocate humanistic education rages on. The debate, then, centers around those who will or should have the right to…

Despite the large amount of attention that has been paid recently to understanding the determinants of educational outcomes, knowledge of the causal effect of the most fundamental input in the education production function--students' study time and effort--has remained virtually non-existent. In this paper, we examine the causal effect of studying…

The National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) require the teacher preparation programs to assess the dispositions of their teacher candidates. The dispositions are indeed difficult to define and measure. This paper aims to define teacher dispositions…

At the 2007 Thought Leaders Symposium, representatives from student affairs, academic affairs, and administration joined facilities leaders to consider three major challenges confronting higher education as a whole: evolving technology, changing stakeholder expectations, and the impact of competition on both those drivers of change. This report…

The purpose of this book is to make the teaching and learning of history a powerful and enjoyable experience in the classroom, changing the often-cited boring image of history for students and offering teachers an opportunity to go beyond the regular textbook. The book focuses on: (1) Varied active teaching ideas; (2) Ideas on how to get students…

This paper outlines and analyses some key design issues we encountered in the process of creating an online role-play simulation (RPS) for a course targeting personnel involved in crisis management. Titled "Black Blizzard" the RPS aims to enable an exploration of typical issues and problems that arise in cross and multi-cultural international…

The purpose of this article is to examine whether 13-year-old pupils in Sweden and the Netherlands have similar or different goal orientations for going to school and learning. For this purpose a cross-national comparative study was conducted involving 717 Dutch and 7391 Swedish pupils. The findings suggest that while goal…

Twelve women have led MENC: The National Association for Music Education, including current president Lynn Brinckmeyer--six of them in the first fifty years of MENC's history. Frances Elliott Clark, known as the "Mother of the Conference," oversaw the founding of the Music Supervisors' National Conference (MSNC) in 1907 at a gathering in Keokuk,…

We summarize a conference on scientific inquiry bringing together science educators, cognitive scientists and philosophers of science with three goals: (1) to establish how much consensus exists about scientific inquiry; (2) to discuss implications of that consensus for teaching science; and (3) to identify areas where consensus is lacking to…

While many institutions of higher education have long advocated the need for educating students for global citizenship and promoting intercultural understanding, the ways of reaching that goal are myriad and as varied as the institutions themselves. In this article, the authors outline a multi-tiered approach that encompasses both curriculum and…

In the last 20 years, public education in the United States has been transformed under the pressures of high-stakes testing. Some argue that right wing ideologues are out to privatize the public school system in order to wring as much profit from the system as they can. Others argue that the new reforms are needed because for too long, teachers…

Achieving the millennium development goals (MDGs) forms the central focus of many donor agencies' policies, resulting in a renewed focus on basic education. This paper explores the different perspectives of donors and the Government of Rwanda (GoR) with regard to education and training. GoR discourse mirrors the international poverty reduction…