Search Results for
"human"

David Stern argues that some basic features of the American high school must be modified if it is to serve all students successfully. He notes, for example, that only three-quarters of U.S. high school students graduate four years after beginning ninth grade and that the National Assessment of Educational Progress found no improvement in reading or mathematics for seventeen-year-olds between 1971 and 2004. The nation's system for educating teenagers, says Stern, seems to be stuck, despite the constant efforts of teachers and repeated waves of reform.Citing two widely accepted public purposes of educating teenagers-preparation for civic participation and for economic self-sufficiency-Stern proposes four new strategies to achieve those goals. He draws on empirical evidence suggesting that these are promising directions for research and policy, but acknowledges that existing studies provide only limited guidance. First, he says, schools should continue the current trend toward integrating educational options to provide young people with skills and experiences that pave the way to both college and careers. Second, states and districts should tie education funding not simply to the number of students attending school, but also to what young people learn, whether they graduate, and whether they find jobs or enroll in postsecondary education. Such a move, he argues, would encourage teaching and learning formats that use students' time more effectively. Third, more adults in addition to classroom teachers should be involved in educating teenagers. Other adults acting as academic advisers, learning coaches, student advocates, internship supervisors, mentors, and college counselors could help guide the education of teenagers inside and outside of school and provide some relief for the chronic shortage of teachers. Fourth, schools should expand the options for educating teenagers outside of geographically fixed schools. Combining improved Internet-based curriculum with internships and civic engagement projects, for example, may produce better results for many young people and also may promote academic achievement for teenagers who do not thrive in conventional classrooms and for those who face academic and social challenges when they move from one place to another. Stern argues that the limited success of today's high schools makes such new initiatives well worth trying and evaluating.

The primary purpose of this study was to identify competencies needed by current human resource development (HRD) master's degree graduate students in Korea. The study used a quantitative method, the Delphi technique, in combination with a qualitative method consisting of a series of in-depth interviews. The Delphi technique was conducted using a survey questionnaire instrument based on a list of competencies analyzed by means of median scores and standard deviation that was developed for the ASTD study. The in-depth interviews were conducted with the Delphi panelists. The study found that both faculty and professional respondents rated all the ASTD competencies as quite important, and there were considerable gaps between the importance and expertise level of each competency for Korean HRD master's graduates. In the qualitative portion of the study, respondents suggested several additional competencies that were relevant to the Korean cultural context.

Cultural-historical activity theory, an outcrop of socio-psychological approaches toward human development, has enjoyed tremendous growth over the past two decades but has yet to be appropriated into science education to any large extent. In part, the difficulties Western scholars have had in adopting this framework arise from its ontology, which is materialist dialectical and, hence, does not allow easy absorption into non-dialectical (classical logical) thinking underlying much of Western scholarship. Cultural-historical activity theory has tremendous potential because it sublates traditional dichotomies in everyday teaching-learning situations including individual/collective, body/mind, intra-/inter-psychological, cognitive/emotive and psychological/sociological. In this contribution, we not only review the existing literature that uses or develops this non-dualistic approach, but also articulate an intelligible explication of the theory that is more accessible to Western scholars and describe possible future curriculum work and research in science education as an expression of the fruitfulness of the theory. © 2009 Taylor & Francis.

Contrary to popular myth, modern prison environments are often workplaces that embrace change and reform. When an innovative model for offender rehabilitation at a corrections centre requires staff to work differently as an inter-professional care team, new ways of learning to work in the overlaps emerge. Using a qualitative case study approach to investigate daily work and crucial incidents that act as change triggers, we discuss how this group experience has challenged individual and group work roles and changed organizational work practices. Our findings suggest a useful nexus of theories of workplace learning with theories of organizational change and development. The emergent quality of human interactions supports the concept of collective competence (Boreham 2004, 2007) rather than the comfort of individual competence. Enhanced understandings of collective learning as relationally-constructed and actively improvised with others argue for a new vocabulary of competence in which more interdisciplinary research can add further insights. © 2009 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Environmental planning education has become crucial given the projected implications of climate change for human settlements and nature. However, despite the identified importance of educating planners with regards to sustainability and environmental issues, there has been limited discussion of the topic within literature. In particular, there has been little consultation with planning professionals about their perception of environmental planning curricula needs. This article addresses this need through the survey of planning professionals in Australia. Perceived gaps in environmental knowledge and skills of planners were identified. The key knowledge gaps highlighted included climate change and water management. The key skill gaps highlighted included critical thinking and independent inquiry. Implications for urban planning curricula including the need to revise planning curricula are discussed. The study has implications for and interest to other professional degrees of which environmental sustainability is a component. © 2009, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

The globalisation along with the interdependence of various economies has resulted in creating extra dimension to the employability skills requirements. Various socio-economic indicators have increased the pressure on vocational education sector and changed it from supply driven to demand driven by the labour market requirements to minimise the existing employability skills gap. The paper presents a study that has been conducted to identify the existing skills gap between School Based Learning (SBL) and Work Based Learning (WBL) in Technical and Vocational Education (TVE) System in Bahrain by asking teachers, human Resources departments from industry, and industrial supervisors to complete questionnaires. Their answers have been analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. Based on these drawn conclusions, an improved employability skills model has been developed which shows the importance of the required skills. This model will be the basis for suggested modifications in SBL and WBL structure in TVE in Bahrain. © Common Ground, Rakesh Mishra, Mohamed Alseddiqi, Crinela Pislaru.

To examine pedagogic practices and vocational education and training (VET) in three categories of growing small firms. The panel data used in the study are drawn from the Australian Bureau of Statistics' Business Longitudinal Surveys. The results indicate on-the-job training provided by owner/managers is the most prevalent training method regardless of growth category. The results also show the proportion of firms adopting formal pedagogic practices increases with enterprise growth. Although there is an increase in the proportion of firms using the widely recognised providers of accredited VET with firm growth, only the minority of lower growth firms use these providers. Again, there is a positive association between firm growth and the implementation of VET; however, less than half of the firms in the three growth categories provide apprenticeship training and traineeships. Taken together, the results demonstrate small business engagement in structured VET, particularly at the lower end of the growth continuum, is, at best, minimal. © Common Ground, Janice T. Jones, All Rights Reserved, Permissions.

The New Economy is synonymous to the growing importance of education and training for the workforce since 'skills, knowledge and human capital' has emerged as the new factor of production in the global economy. Corporate restructuring, technological innovations and changing consumption patterns have reorganized work from conventional low-skill Fordist to modern high-skill post-Fordist production methods. These changes have necessitated new and changing skills requirements which implicate on a nation's skills formation (i.e. education and training) system. In Malaysia, such global challenges are widely acknowledged as the nation moves into the New Economy. human capital development is now the key agenda as Malaysia moves up its development trajectory from a low-skill agriculture economy since Independence (1957) to a high skill industrial and services economy now. Malaysia's aspiration to be a developed and knowledge-based economy is extensively documented in development blueprints such as the 9th Malaysia Plan (2006-2010), New Development Policy (1990-2000) and the VISION 2020. It is against this setting that this study examines the way forces of the New Economy have necessitated new and changing skills requirements of Malaysia's commercial banking sector. More crucially, this study investigates the State-corporate nexus towards skills formation taking into consideration the changing roles of the Malaysian State, capitalist and labour as they respond to neo-liberalist reforms. The role of the Malaysian developmental state is revisited amidst these changes. With full financial deregulation happening soon in 2010, the findings and implications of this study serve as valuable input in formulating human capital policies for Malaysia's banking industry as it operates in the New Economy. © Common Ground.

INTRODUCTION: Australian medical education is increasingly influenced by rural workforce policy. Therefore, understanding the influences on medical graduates' practice location and specialty choice is crucial for medical educators and medical workforce planners. The South Australian Flinders University Parallel Rural Community Curriculum (PRCC) was funded by the Australian Government to help address the rural doctor workforce shortage. The PRCC was the first community based medical education program in Australia to teach a full academic year of medicine in South Australian rural general practices. The aim of this research was to identify what factors influence the career choices of PRCC graduates. METHODS: A retrospective survey of all contactable graduates of the PRCC was undertaken. Quantitative data were analysed using SPSS 14.0 for Windows. Qualitative data were entered into NVIVO 7 software for coding, and analysed using content analysis. RESULTS: Usable data were collected from 46 of the 86 contactable graduates (53%). More than half of the respondents (54%) reported being on a rural career path. A significant relationship exists between being on a rural career pathway and making the decision prior to or during medical school (p = 0.027), and between graduates in vocational training who are on an urban career path and making a decision on career specialty after graduation from medical school (p = .004). Graduates in a general practice vocational training program are more likely to be on a rural career pathway than graduates in a specialty other than general practice (p = .003). A key influence on graduates' practice location is geographic location prior to entering medical school. Key influences on graduates choosing a rural career pathway are: having a spouse/partner with a rural background; clinical teachers and mentors; the extended rural based undergraduate learning experience; and a specialty preference for general practice. A lack of rural based internships and specialist training places is influencing both urban- and rural-origin graduates to practise in urban locations. Further analysis of graduates' career pathway choices (rural or urban) and geographic background (rural or urban) was conducted. This resulted in the development of a new model, 'The Four Qs Model'. This model consists of four quadrants derived from the variables career pathway choice (rural or urban) and geographic background (rural or urban). Clustering of consistent demographic and qualitative trends unique to each quadrant was demonstrated. The distinctive clustering that emerged from the data resulted in the quadrants being renamed 'The True Believers', 'The Convertibles' 'The Frustrated' and 'The Metro Docs'. CONCLUSIONS: The PRCC is influencing graduates to choose a rural career path. The PRCC program affirms the career preferences of rural origin students while graduates with little rural exposure prior to the PRCC report being positively influenced to pursue a rural career path. The Four Qs Model is a useful model in that it demonstrates consistent themes in the characteristics of PRCC graduates and assists understanding of why they choose a rural medical career. This could be relevant to the selection of medical students into rural medical education programs and in the construction of rural curricula. The model also offers a useful framework for further research in this field.

Education is a common means to prepare oneself for a career, be it in government, industry, or academe; profit or non-profit organization; for self-employment or as part of the human resource talent of someone else's organization. Consequently, one of the responsibilities of higher education institutions is to prepare students for their careers. A concept that began to take off in the 1960s is to sandwich a period of actual work exposure within a student's curriculum. This paper explored different variations of that concept within a private university and demonstrated how it impacts the first job experience of its graduates. Data seem to point that students who are exposed to work for longer hours on a full-time basis are likely to receive higher salaries at better first-job level positions after they graduate. © 2009 De La Salle University.