Corporate training and effective performance have become major issues in the 1980s and '90s. Reviews of the training research literature show that, parallel to the growing attention to corporate training, research has also increased in the field, giving a better understanding of the subject and providing fundamental expertise on which trainers can build. The contributions to the book differ in the degree to which they are related to performance issues, but all chapters underline the necess...

What goals should be addressed by educational programs? What priorities should be assigned to the different goals? What funds should be allocated to each goal? How can quality services be maintained with declining school enrollments and shrinking revenues? What programs could be cut if necessary? The ebb and flow of the student population, the changing needs of our society and the fluctuation of resources constantly impinge on the education system. Educators must deal with students, commun...

If trainers want to truly make an impact on organizations, what they need is a new mindset, not a new technique. Drawing on examples from major companies and their own years of experience, the authors inspire trainers to have the courage to break away from the usual ways of doing things and identify what is really needed and what really works.

This book capitalizes on the developments in dynamical systems and education by presenting some of the most recent advances in this area in seventeen non-overlapping chapters. The first half of the book discusses the conceptual framework of complex dynamical systems and its applicability to educational processes. The second half presents a set of empirical studies thatthat illustrate the use of various research methodologies to investigate complex dynamical processes in education, ...

With new standards emphasizing higher-order thinking skills, students will have to demonstrate their ability to do far more than simply remember facts and procedures. But what's the best way for teachers to ensure that students have such skills? In this highly accessible guide, author Susan M. Brookhart shows how to do just that, by providing specific guidelines for designing targeted questions and tasks that align with standards and assess students' ability to think at higher levels....

“Although standards-based reform emerged in the United States and the United Kingdom, the idea has spread across the world, as an approach to systemic reform. It might appear that there is a world-wide “tsunami” of standards-based reform that will standardize and homogenize the educational system across the globe. This volume makes it very clear, however, that there is no one approach to standards-based reform and countries change – there is a danger in paying attention to its evolution an...

In the abstract, training is seen as valuable by most people in business and industry. However, in the rush of providing training programs "on time" and "within budget," evaluation of training is frequently left behind as a "nice to have" addition, if practical. In addition, the training function itself is left with the dilemma of proving its worth to management without a substantive history of evaluation. This book is designed to provide managers, educators, and trainers alike the opportu...

Designing Performance Assessment Systems for Urban Teacher Preparation presents an argument for, and invites, critical examination of teacher preparation and assessment practices--in light of both the complexity and demands of urban settings and the theories of learning and learning to teach that guide teacher education practices. This dynamic approach distinguishes the authors' stance on urban teacher assessment as one that can help address social justice issues related to gender...

A fully-updated and reworked version of the classic book by Stephen Kemmis and Robin McTaggart, now joined by Rhonda Nixon, The Action Research Planner is a detailed guide to developing and conducting a critical participatory action research project. The authors outline new views on ‘participation’ (based on Jürgen Habermas’s notion of a ‘public sphere’), ‘practice’ (as shaped by practice architectures), and ‘research’ (as research within practice traditions). They provide five ex...

Over the course of ten years, this extensive qualitative study focused on the academic resilience phenomenon. The research delves into the educational resilience experiences of fifty low socioeconomic students of color from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds. In addition to chronicling specific protective factors and processes active in the students' lives, several symbiotic relationships between groups of protective factors are documented and explored. A Resilience Cycle ...

This book takes a developmental perspective at the use of scoring rubrics to assess student work. Citing developmental characteristics of each age, the author presents examples and adaptations of assessment rubrics on a variety of subjects for teachers from kindergarten through adult/college. After a presentation of foundation information on rubrics, separate chapters are devoted to each grade level from primary through adult. Written so that each chapter can be addressed independently, th...