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"Teaching"

Due to the growing centrality of knowledge in our society, innovation in teaching is playing an increasingly important role for maintaining the competitiveness of the European Union (EU). Innovative teaching methods allow a more effective delivery of knowledge as compared to the more traditional pedagogical approaches - such as the “chalk and talk” - thus fitting the educational needs of a modern competitive society. Using primary data from a large research project aiming at understanding how European Studies are currently taught across the EU, we set out to test the correlates of three different innovative methods used in teaching these classes, namely internships, distance learning, and exchange programmes. In particular, we investigated whether certain lecturer’s characteristics (Jean Monnet scholars’ status, tenured academic position, and level of experience) and class features (presence of students’ evaluations and class size) correlate with more innovation in teaching European Studies. Our findings partially support our hypotheses across the three innovative teaching methods we considered, thus backing up some of our intuitions while at the same time providing directions for future research which would allow a more nuanced understanding of the correlates of innovation in teaching European Studies. The authors benefitted from feedback obtained at the Twelfth Biennial International Conference of the European Union Studies Association (EUSA), Boston, MA, March 3-5, 2011. All errors remain our own. © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014.

Nowadays electronic form of teaching is proclaimed to be an imperative mainly for tertiary level of education. On the other hand many research results show that higher efficiency of education is achieved by the use of blended learning. The paper presents experiences and research results of the authors related to the use of e-learning as supporting tool to traditional forms of education at higher education institutions to eliminate study problems of students coming to universities from different types of secondary schools. To help the students of the bachelor study programme Occupational Health and Safety to cope with their study problems in relation to the compulsory subject Machines and machine elements they created an electronic course offering the students a possibility to acquire eventual missing knowledge necessary to pass the practical exercises included in the subject. As the teacher experiences and research data of the designed e-course verification show, students given at disposal this e-course as a learning assistance tool have no serious problems to do the practical assignments they are expected to fulfil during the lessons.

Solnet et al. (2007) argue that tourism-related fields can be thought of as applied subject areas. This means that academics, students and curricula develop and benefit from close links with industry (Cooper & Westlake, 1998). Some authors (e.g. Cooper & Westlake, 1998; Busby, 2003, 2005; Solnet et al., 2007) criticize tourism linkage strategies in many education institutions; this is because they are often haphazard, lack vision, focus, commitment and resources. Due to the traditional importance of universities as research centres and sources of innovation, a review of relevant literature sources indicates that most studies of industry engagement have revolved around knowledge transfer and tourism innovation (e.g. Shaw & Williams, 2009; Baggio & Cooper, 2010; Weidenfeld et al., 2010). Few literature sources have considered the impacts of industry engagement on the enhancement of the teaching experience. Moreover, many papers have been written from a university or industry perspective. As the key stakeholder of such engagement, the students’ voice is missing in the research (Chapleo & Simms, 2010). Higher education institutions (HEIs) in the UK face challenges from many different directions, and the institutions’ value to students and also wider society is regularly questioned (Department for Business Innovation and Skills, 2009, 2011; Gannon & Maher, 2012). A lack of a clear understanding of the students’ expectations and experiences in such relevant engagements generates serious problems when trying to integrate the tourism industry with tourism and hospitality education. © 2015 Editorial matter and selection: Dianne Dredge, David Airey and Michael J. Gross.

[No abstract available]

This book critically explores why some Asian nations are on top of the world in students' achievement tests in reading and literacy, yet governments and industry in these nations are anxious about a crisis in education. Why are governments anxious about the capabilities and skills of school and university graduates in a global economy when there is a Asian economic boom? The authors explore questions about how the Asian countries value test-based examination curriculum and its influence on the practices of teaching learning and the lives of young people in Asia. The authors describe the challenge of change for East Asian nations to develop more relevant approaches to literacy and language and more inclusive societies focussed on the needs of young people and not exam results. © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014. All rights reserved.

The quality of education is increasingly being measured less by the knowledge gained during schooling and more by the level of competence possessed by students at doing a particular job after completing their education. Target and process-planned curricula are being replaced more and more by competence-oriented curricula, especially in science and technology education, where competences, generally defned as the capability or the ability of an individual doing a job properly, are placed at the forefront. If competence is the desired criterion for educational quality, it can be easily established that suitable instruments and methods of measurement are needed for this kind of quality evaluation, which, however, are not yet available. Suitable instrumentation was developed in this study. Its use was demonstrated in the example of elementary education in Slovenia. © 2014(publisher name). All rights Reserved.

The present study aimed to: (a) develop the SRL-PV scheme for assessing preservice teachers' integration of professional vision (PV) considerations (noticing/describing/explaining/predicting) while analyzing two delivery modes for teaching of self-regulated learning (SRL): direct SRL teaching (explicit/implicit) and indirect SRL teaching (via environment) and (b) test this scheme's practical validity and reliability for measuring effects of teacher education. The scheme was used to assess 26 preservice teachers' lesson analyses, collected before and after an academic SRL teaching and Learning Methods course. At posttest, lesson analyses revealed specific, qualitative SRL-PV descriptions that referenced SRL components and PV considerations, thus providing content validity for the scheme. Theoretical, methodological, and practical implications are discussed for using the SRL-PV scheme to empower teachers' SRL professionalism. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.

Most universities offer a program to prepare their academics for university teaching. One common focus of these programs across Australia is that of developing academics as reflective practitioners. A variety of approaches and strategies are adopted towards achieving this outcome. This chapter presents a rationale and case study for the pivotal role of reflective capacity in developing the academy through the mandated practice of peer review in a university teacher preparation program. © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014.

After 30 years spent planning and designing a 12-Year Basic Education policy, the Ministry of Education finally announced in 2011 that the policy would be implemented in 2014. However, despite the government's promotion of the policy for three years, it is still inducing intense disputes and controversy. The public is primarily concerned about the arrangement of the entrance examinations, outnumbered-applicant ranking criteria, and featured high schools; these three controversial points are related to enrollment and school administration. In particular, the public tends to directly link featured high schools with traditional, so-called "elite" high schools. Thus, the public has focused on school enrollment while overlooking the importance of school administration. In the postwar period, Japan implemented diversification policies for upper secondary education twice: in the 1960s and the 1990s. In the first phase, general education and vocational education were separated. In the second phase, featured high schools were promoted. Following the emergence of the comprehensive course in the 1990s, the government of Japan aggressively promoted special designations among high schools regardless of whether they were public, private, general, or specialized, including the Super Science High School, Super English Language High School, Becoming a Specialist, and Japanese Dual System designations. These designations were intended to develop schools' characteristics, innovation, localization, and diversification, as well as to help schools implement featured curricula to become featured schools. The implementation of the featured high schools policy released teachers and students from existing curricula, leading them to develop creative teaching materials; it also provided junior high school students with multiple choices for secondary school. Moreover, it facilitated cooperation between local enterprises and high schools, and balanced development between urban and rural areas. This study suggests that for the 12-Year Basic Education policy, building featured high schools is not the same as eliminating elite high schools. Furthermore, it should not be confined to academic features. Although the enrollment strategy specified in the 12-Year Basic Education policy must be modified, the reform direction of the 12-Year Basic Education policy is in line with that implemented in Japan, and deserves recognition. Therefore, this study analyzed the development of policies for the diversification of upper secondary education in Japan through a literature review and a field survey. This study examined education reform concepts and their implementation in featured high schools, as well as school administrations. This study is intended as a reference for the implementation of the 12-Year Basic Education policy in Taiwan.

This chapter aims to give an account of Aristotle's theory of knowledge and to associate the version of the theory-practice relation that this account offers with work-based learning. To this end, a critical discussion of the reception of some Aristotelian ideas within the work-based learning context is followed by a deployment of Aristotelian ways of knowing and some comments on the subjectivity of the phronimos that can be cultivated in on-the-job and off-the-job settings. It is argued that a more comprehensive account of epistemology through gnoseology, one that acknowledges the relation of time and schooling, accommodates some WBL concerns and highlights the topicality and nuance of various modes of teaching and learning. © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013. All rights are reserved.