From October 21 to 23, 2008, The Heritage Foundation, supported by the McCormick Tribune Foundation, convened leading education and national security experts as well as private-sector representatives to discuss methods for strengthening America's competitiveness by improving its performance in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics…

States have taken a "standards-based" approach to education during the past two decades; however, as reported in the Hunt Institute-sponsored study by the National Research Council, that approach has fallen short of its lofty and admirable goals. A comprehensive and integrated system of standards, assessments, curriculum, instructional materials,…

This paper displays some results from research carried out in Andalusia (Spain) to evaluate the impact of the educational innovation policy developed by the regional government through widely introducing Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in primary and secondary schools (ICT Centres). Specifically, it analysed the effect of the…

Building on Opportunities for Student Teaching and Learning (BOOST) is a community-based summer preschool program developed, implemented, and coordinated by student teachers, university supervisors, and faculty. Ten preservice graduate students participated in BOOST practicum activities during the spring and summer terms of their 1-year Early…

Within weeks of taking office, Australia's new Labor government commissioned two major reviews--one of Australia's innovation system and one of Australian higher education. Taken together, these reviews will have major implications for the future of research and teaching in Australia for decades to come. This paper discusses the main…

Original research and content creation in the university environment have historically been the domain of faculty and their graduate students. Nowadays, however, undergraduate programs at universities across the country are putting undergrads in the center of the action. This article describes some of these programs--at Duke University (North…

This paper examines "Fresh Start," a New Labour flagship initiative to raise education "standards" in a radical and innovative way. Drawing on a qualitative study of a comprehensive school in England, I argue that the initiative added to the problems faced by the "failing school" and promoted rather traditional ways…

This paper presents a European Community supported project which investigated whether the use of electronic and mobile technologies in the hands of young learners might engage them in learning activities and start to change their attitudes towards learning. The mLearning system was implemented in a Europe-wide network of 14 schools with over 500…

The Lewis & Clark Rediscovery Project is a technology professional development program designed to help teachers restructure teaching and learning practices in the classroom, and to foster technology use in the schools. The 5-year program (extended into a 6th) was funded in 1999 with a grant from the U.S. Department of Education: Technology…

A professional development programme for music educators was designed and administered to include institutional and personal professional strategies for the enhancement and growth of music teachers' knowledge base and actions. Supervisors and targeted practitioners in a large public school system built an innovative programme, applying current…

This study examines the historical conditions that fostered significant reform in science education. To understand these conditions, we employ a framework drawn from the new institutionalism in organization theory to study the founding and early development of the Exploratorium--a prominent science center that greatly impacted the field of science…

Establishing an innovative school requires a great deal of planning effort, human power and resources. Nevertheless, many innovative schools suffer a process of regression toward the mean and lose their innovative zeal. Based on the life cycle approach, which claims that part of this trend of regression is embodied in the planning phase, and on…

The advent of a continuous innovation and improvement, particularly in respect of information and communications technology has had a huge impact on the quality of life and in education delivery is an open secret. The benefits from exploiting ICT in education are ernomous but there are abuses that have tarnished its use in education. The…

Academics are viewed as one of the agents through whom the university classroom can be reinvented. With recent changes in higher education policies, the concept of the university classroom is undergoing change. This article explores the various aspects that make up the university classroom: the physical space, the resources available, the use of…

This article concentrates on two pieces of legislation promulgated in the early 1960s in order to investigate the broader ideas and concerns surrounding political education in the postwar Federal Republic of Germany. These pieces of educational policy highlight the consensus for continued reform while recognizing the value of curricular and…