State Literacy Plans: Incorporating Adolescent Literacy

2008 ◽  
Vol 78 (1) ◽  
pp. 211-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
CATHERINE SNOW ◽  
TWAKIA MARTIN ◽  
ILENE BERMAN

In this article, Catherine Snow, Twakia Martin, and Ilene Berman describe professional development institutes offered in 2001 and 2002 by the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices to familiarize state-level policymakers with research on adolescent literacy and to guide states' development of effective literacy plans. The authors then review the literacy plans that four of the participating states developed in the years following their institute involvement and discuss ways in which the content of the literacy institutes is reflected in these states' plans. In conclusion, the authors call on higher education institutions to help state policymakers develop and evaluate initiatives intended to increase adolescents' reading skills. They also call for broader cross-state comparisons of states' strategies for improving adolescent literacy.

Author(s):  
Olha Pavlenko

The article discusses the current state of professional training of engineers, in particular, electronics engineers in Ukrainian higher education institutions (HEIs) and explores best practices from US HEIs. The research outlines the features of professional training of electronics engineers and recent changes in Ukrainian HEIs. Such challenges for Ukrainian HEIs as lack of collaboration between higher education and science with industry, R&D cost reduction for HEIs, and downsizing the research and academic staff, the disparity between the available quality of human capital training and the demanded are addressed. The study attempts to identify successful practices of US HEIs professional training of engineers in order to suggest potential improvements in education, research, and innovation for training electronics engineers in Ukraine.


Author(s):  
Normah Abdullah ◽  
Laura Christ Dass ◽  
Siti Akmar Abu Samah

This paper is taken from a bigger study aimed at trialing a Western learning model in a Malaysian context where it is yet to be tested by previous research. The Visible Thinking (VT) Project of Project Zero research is used as benchmark for this study. A summary of selected PZ research projects presented in this paper highlights the learning benefits of establishing patterns of thinking within the classroom as projected by PZ studies of Harvard Graduate School of Education, the hallmark institution. Many aspects of classroom teaching have been shown by PZ research to enhance learning, this paper will focus on a Malaysian undergraduate classroom that has decided to trial this highly recommended model using a framework derived from PZ school settings. Part of the focus of the study was to check if the ideas and paradigms are transferable to a Higher Education ESL context of a culturally different setting in terms of the manifestations of classroom interactions, students’ and teacher’s perception of it as well as from the researcher’s observation of this classroom in session. The literature on the findings of VT project, mainly the thinking routines employed, the importance of establishing thinking routines in the classroom and examples of instances where these routines were visible in the classroom contexts are the summarized in this paper. Most of PZ research was conducted in school classrooms in a Western setting. This study prides itself in taking PZ research to a whole new level to study undergraduate students in a Malaysian classroom setting.


Author(s):  
Andrew Whitworth

The shift in perception, from librarians as providers of information to librarians as educators in the effective use of information, requires the profession to become aware of differing approaches to the development of teaching and of the professional consciousness of educators: also of the way certain forms of teaching and CPD are privileged over others within higher education institutions, and why. This paper reports on and synthesises a range of theoretical works in this area, to explain how becoming an effective information literacy educator requires not just an awareness of practice, but developing it, through a continous interaction between theory and practice. The librarian-as-educator must engage in professional development practices which, ultimately, require the continuous questioning of the very foundations of IL, and work actively towards raising awareness of these processes throughout their institutions.


Author(s):  
Anna Kasimati ◽  
Sofia Mysirlaki ◽  
Hara Bouta ◽  
Fotini Paraskeva

The rise of mobile broadband devices and services has significantly changed the role of mobile devices in people's daily lives by enabling the provision of innovative applications and services anywhere, anytime. Despite the fact that new ideas and innovation mainly occur within Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), the adoption of mobile and ubiquitous technologies by HEIs is still in its early stages. This chapter attempts to provide a framework to support Higher Education Institutions towards implementing mobile and ubiquitous, game-based learning activities. Aligned with the objective of this book, this chapter presents some examples and best practices of implementing this framework towards achieving the learning goals of future professionals in the fields of electronic and ubiquitous commerce.


2016 ◽  
pp. 81-91
Author(s):  
Linda Van Ryneveld

Over the past decade or two advancements in educational technology have taken place so swiftly that it threatens to revolutionize the education system. This phenomena seem to drive higher education institutions to respond with costly roll out plans that bring state of the art computing hard- and software, together with other highly specialized educational technologies, to their campuses. The dilemma is that these investments in educational technology are often made in isolation, without consideration for imperative aspects such as professional development. To progress, educators need to acquire the skills, knowledge and attitudes necessary to make optimal use of the technology. This can be achieved, among other, by means of well-structured professional development programmes. In this chapter the author explores the role of educational technology in higher education and establishes the need for capacity building by means of carefully designed professional development programmes. It furthermore suggests an alternative professional development framework.


Author(s):  
Neal Shambaugh

Attention to the quality issues of distance education in higher education has focused primarily on courses. Entire academic programs are now delivered online, and faculty members must spend a significant amount of resources in addressing curricular-issues of online programs, as opposed to pedagogical issues for the courses they teach. Priorities for instructor interactivity and immediacy can become explicit goals for all learning experiences in academic programs. This chapter is organized in three parts: (1) the value of using interactivity/immediacy in the design of extended learning academic programs, (2) instructional design best practices for developing interactivity and immediacy in online academic programs, and (3) recommendations for different level of academic programs, including undergraduate, master's, doctoral, and specialized programs, including teacher education, certificates, and professional development.


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