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Educational Community (educational + community)
Selected AbstractsA conceptual framework for developing teaching cases: a review and synthesis of the literature across disciplinesMEDICAL EDUCATION, Issue 9 2006Sara Kim Context, Case-based teaching is regarded as a superior instructional method compared with lectures in promoting a learner's critical thinking skills. While much is known about the role a discussion facilitator plays in case-based teaching, the debate on the influence of the format and structure of cases on learning is controversial. Objectives, We sought to identify strategies for constructing cases based on studies from multiple disciplines, which report the development and use of cases in teaching and learning. The purpose was to offer the medical and other educational communities a conceptual framework that can be examined in future research. Results, Based on a review of 100 studies, we synthesised 17 strategies around 5 core attributes of cases: relevant (level of learner, goals and objectives, setting of case narrative); realistic (authenticity, distractors, gradual disclosure of content); engaging (rich content, multiple perspectives, branching of content); challenging (difficulty, unusual cases, case structure, multiple cases), and instructional (build upon prior knowledge, assessment, feedback, and teaching aids). Discussion, Despite the wide use of cases in disparate disciplines, there has been no overarching study that synthesises strategies of case development or tests these strategies in research settings. The framework we developed can serve as a menu of case development options that educators and researchers can pilot and evaluate in their local settings. [source] Electronic doors to education: study of high school website accessibility in Iowa,BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES & THE LAW, Issue 1 2003David Klein M.A. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and Sections 504 and 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities in all aspects of daily life, including education, work, and access to places of public accommodations. Increasingly, these antidiscrimination laws are used by persons with disabilities to ensure equal access to e-commerce, and to private and public Internet websites. To help assess the impact of the anti-discrimination mandate for educational communities, this study examined 157 website home pages of Iowa public high schools (52% of high schools in Iowa) in terms of their electronic accessibility for persons with disabilities. We predicted that accessibility problems would limit students and others in obtaining information from the web pages as well as limiting ability to navigate to other web pages. Findings show that although many web pages examined included information in accessible formats, none of the home pages met World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards for accessibility. The most frequent accessibility problem was lack of alternative text (ALT tags) for graphics. Technical sophistication built into pages was found to reduce accessibility. Implications are discussed for schools and educational institutions, and for laws, policies, and procedures on website accessibility. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Learning from Difference: Considerations for Schools as CommunitiesCURRICULUM INQUIRY, Issue 3 2000Carolyn M. Shields In today's highly complex and heterogeneous public schools, the current notion of schools as homogeneous communities with shared beliefs, norms, and alues is inadequate. Drawing on Barth's (1990) question of how to use ifference as a resource, I take up ideas from feminism, multiculturalism, and inclusive education to consider the development of community in schools. I argue that despite the valuable contributions of these theoretical perspectives, each lso includes the potential for increased fragmentation and polarization. As we consider how to use differences as a foundation for community, it is important ot to reify any particular perspective, thus marginalizing others and erecting new barriers. Explicitly embracing the need to identify and respect difference, being open to new ideas without taking an exclusionary position, and committing to ongoing participation in dialogical processes may help schools to develop as more authentic communities of difference. Among the dominant issues identified in today's climate of turbulent educational reform are concerns about how to restructure schools to ensure equality of student opportunity and excellence of instruction (Elmore, 1990; Lieberman, 1992; Murphy, 1991). Many proposals include modifying present leadership and governance structures, overcoming the hegemony of existing power bases, developing mechanisms for accountability, enhancing professionalism, and co-ordinating community resources. One of the suggestions frequently made to address these issues is to change from a focus on schools as organizations to a recognition of schools as communities (Barth, 1990; Fullan, 1993; Lupart & Webber, 1996; Senge, 1990). However, despite the widespread use of the metaphor of community as an alternative to the generally accepted concept of schools as rational or functional organizations, there seems to be little clarity about the concept of community, what it might look like, how it might be implemented, or what policies might sustain it. Indeed, theories about schools as communities have often drawn from Tönnies (1887/1971) concept of gemeinschaft,a concept which perhaps evokes a more homogeneous and romanticized view of the past than one which could be helpful for improving education in today's dynamic, complex, and heterogeneous context (Beck & Kratzer, 1994; Sergiovanni, 1994a). More recently, several writers (Fine et al., 1997; Furman, 1998; Shields & Seltzer, 1997) have advanced the notion of communities of otherness or difference. These authors have suggested that rather than thinking of schools as communities that exist because of a common affiliation to an established school ethos or tradition, it might be more helpful to explore an alternative concept. A school community founded on difference would be one in which the common centre would not be taken as a given but would be co-constructed from the negotiation of disparate beliefs and values as participants learn to respect, and to listen to, each other. In this concept, bonds among members are not assumed, but forged, and boundaries are not imposed but negotiated. Over the past eight years, as I have visited and worked with a large number of schools trying earnestly to address the needs of their diverse student bodies, I have become increasingly aware of the limitations of the concept of community used in the gemeinschaft sense with its emphasis on shared values, norms, and beliefs, and have begun to reflect on the question framed by Barth (1990): ,How can we make conscious, deliberate use of differences in social class, gender, age, ability, race, and interest as resources for learning?' (p. 514). In this article, I consider how learning from three of these areas of difference: gender, race, and ability, may help us to a better understanding of educational community. This article begins with some illustrations and examples from practice, moves to consider how some theoretical perspectives may illuminate them, and concludes with reflections on how the implications of the combined reflections on practice and theory might actually help to reconceptualize and to improve practice. While it draws heavily on questions and impressions which have arisen out of much of my fieldwork, it is not intended to be an empirical paper, but a conceptual one,one which promotes reflection and discussion on the concept of schools as communities of difference. The examples of life in schools taken from longitudinal research studies in which I have been involved demonstrate several common ways in which difference is dealt with in today's schools and some of the problems inherent in these approaches. Some ideas drawn from alternative perspectives then begin to address Barth's question of how to make deliberate use of diversity as a way of thinking about community. Taken together, I hope that these ideas will be helpful in creating what I have elsewhere called ,schools as communities of difference' (Shields & Seltzer, 1997). [source] 5.3 Global challenges in research and strategic planningEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DENTAL EDUCATION, Issue 2002Bruce J. Baum Health sciences research is experiencing dramatic progress. How can dental schools throughout the world best make these research advances relevant for dental students, as well as providing them with the means to assess and utilize the research advances that will occur in the future? This complex question presents a critical challenge to the dental educational community. Research is clearly integral to the mission of dental education. By providing dental students with active learning strategies, dental educators can inculcate the ability for independent scientific thinking and thereby develop reflective as well as technically competent practitioners. However, there is a shortage of well-trained individuals to fill faculty and research positions in certain parts of the world. Global networks for mutual information exchange are imperative to overcome resource limitations in individual institutions, as is dedicated funding for research in the dental educational setting. [source] The 550th Anniversary of the Universität Basel, 1460,,,2010: Paracelsian Beginnings and ChemistryHELVETICA CHIMICA ACTA, Issue 9 2010G. Wayne Craig Abstract This year marks the 550th anniversary of the founding of the Universität Basel. After its inception, the development of chemistry has played a major role in its evolution as an academic institution to meet the needs of industry and the educational community. Chemistry evolved in Basel as a dominant industry because of its central location and connection to the Rhine. The dyestuff industry and later the pharmaceutical industry established the Basel location as a major center of distribution. Companies like Sandoz AG, Ciba AG, J.,R. Geigy AG, and F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG influenced the defining role of chemistry not only in Europe but throughout the world. This article highlights some of the academic personalities that contributed to the development of chemistry in the remarkable history of the Universität Basel since the time of Paracelsus. [source] Get it Off Your Chest: Contexts in Creative Community WorkingINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ART & DESIGN EDUCATION, Issue 1 2003June Bianchi Three years ago I started work on the exhibition Get it off your chest, a multimedia project exploring the personal and social role of the breast within British culture. The project would involve over one hundred people as contributors, engaging with ongoing debates within academic, media and informal contexts as to what constitutes and impacts upon constructions of the female image within our society, particularly in relation to the breast as a primary signifier. The working practices evolved in creating Get it off your chest were instrumental in generating a synergy in my own creative activities, enabling some measure of unification to occur within the strands of my art,making and art educational roles. This synergistic approach, which I term ,creative community working' will be discussed in this paper alongside the epistemological focus of the exhibition, its inception and its consequent structure, presentation and wider educational role. I will focus throughout on exploring the development of creative community working contexts: the impulse to integrate what sometimes seem like rogue elements of the professional and creative identity is one shared by many members of the art educational community and I hope that this paper will generate feedback and discussion on the diverse ways in which colleagues generate synergy in their own working lives. [source] At the Interface of School and WorkJOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION, Issue 3 2005Theodore Lewis The current emphasis that organisations are placing upon knowledge and the corresponding attention that workplace epistemological values are receiving within the educational community has resulted in an interesting convergence of discourses,school-based and work-based. Even as workplaces are tending toward abstraction over practice,based knowing, schools are being nudged into doing the reverse. The result of this ferment is that traditional barriers between these kinds of knowledge are being removed. As can be seen from workplace examples, it is possible for liberal learning to be in the service of instrumental ends. So too schools may come to see more clearly the value of situatedness and team-work in the transaction of liberal learning. More generally, we see also new possibilities for retreat from received views about the worth of practical knowledge. [source] How Many Brains Does It Take to Build a New Light: Knowledge Management Challenges of a Transdisciplinary ProjectMIND, BRAIN, AND EDUCATION, Issue 1 2009Bruno Della Chiesa ABSTRACT, The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) Center for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) carried out the Learning Sciences and Brain Research project (1999,2007) to investigate how neuroscience research can inform education policy and practice. This transdisciplinary project brought many challenges. Within the political community, participation in the project varied, with some countries resisting approval of the project altogether, in the beginning. In the neuroscientific community, participants struggled to represent their knowledge in a way that would be meaningful and relevant to educators. Within the educational community, response to the project varied, with many educational researchers resisting it for fear that neuroscience research might make their work obsolete. Achieving dialogue among these communities was even more challenging. One clear obstacle was that participants had difficulty recognizing tacit knowledge in their own field and making this knowledge explicit for partners in other fields. This article analyzes these challenges through a knowledge management framework. [source] Educational Neuroscience: Defining a New Discipline for the Study of Mental RepresentationsMIND, BRAIN, AND EDUCATION, Issue 3 2007Dénes Sz ABSTRACT, Is educational neuroscience a "bridge too far"? Here, we argue against this negative assessment. We suggest that one major reason for skepticism within the educational community has been the inadequate definition of the potential role and use of neuroscience research in education. Here, we offer a provisional definition for the emerging discipline of educational neuroscience as the study of the development of mental representations. We define mental representations in terms of neural activity in the brain. We argue that there is a fundamental difference between doing educational neuroscience and using neuroscience research results to inform education. While current neuroscience research results do not translate into direct classroom applications, educational neuroscience can expand our knowledge about learning, for example, by tracking the normative development of mental representations. We illustrate this briefly via mathematical educational neuroscience. Current capabilities and limitations of neuroscience research methods are also considered. [source] | ||||||||||||||||