Given the current educational climate of high stakes testing, standardized curriculum, and 'approved' reading lists, incorporating unauthorized, popular literature into the classroom becomes a political choice. The authors examine why teachers choose to read Harry Potter , how they use the books, and the resulting teacher-student interactions.

Through innovative analysis of theory and practice, this book offers refreshing critical perspectives on service-learning in higher education. It constructs a theoretical paradigm for service-learning which extends to critical pedagogy, and investigates critical reflection and academic reflective writing, supported throughout by empirical evidence.

Continuing its calling to define the field and where it is going, the Second Edition of this landmark handbook brings up to date its comprehensive reportage of scholarly developments and school curriculum initiatives worldwide, providing a panoramic view of the state of curriculum studies globally. Its international scope and currency and range of research and theory reflect and contribute significantly to the ongoing internationalization of curriculum studies and its growth as a field wor...

Transitions to new educational experiences are a universal rite of passage encountered by children worldwide. This volume in the Educating the Young Child: Advances in Theory and Research, Implications for Practice series provides early childhood educators with a resource that focuses on the transitions that young children make to early care and education settings, along with the issues that surround this important time in their lives. New experiences, such as the start of formal ...

This unique book explores school improvement policy – from its translation into national contexts and school networks to its implementation in leader and teacher practices in individual schools and classrooms within this network of schools and its impact on students’ learning. It draws on multiple conceptual and theoretical resources to explore the complexities attached to a school improvement process in a network of schools in Australia. These conceptual and theoretical resources include ...

This book offers a range of approaches and specific examples of how a sample of internationally leading research-intensive universities, from a variety of regions around the world, work to improve teaching and learning. It describes and analyzes broad university initiatives and approaches that have the potential of driving institution-wide change processes in teaching and learning, thus providing a link between strategic ambitions and cultural transformation in the universities. Globally, ...

In Practical Knowledge in Teacher Education, expert contributors from across Asia and Europe explore and reflect upon the innovation and creativity in teacher education programs. Specific focus is given to the internships that provide students an opportunity for intensive, hands-on experience in schools. Different approaches to internship provide comprehensive information on a diversity of ways of organising and managing internship programmes within teacher education courses, and ...

Since the Teacher Education Act was in place in 1994, student teachers were educated through diverse educational institutions instead of the traditional normal schools (Taiwan’s equivalent of teachers’ colleges). But such market-based teacher education has been altered by politics, society and culture in the direction of government-controlled teacher education, particularly in the quality evaluation of teacher education. Taiwan maintains teacher education quality by controlling the number ...

This book provides scholars, teacher educators, as well as reflective school leaders and teachers with valuable insights into what it is to be a teacher in the 21st century. It does so by presenting original research based on a study of several New Zealand schools between 2013 and 2015, and in particular, a focussed study of four of those schools in 2015.The book draws on the findings to take stock of some of the central manifestations of 21st-century learning, especially digital p...

Drawing on developments in cognitive science, Bracher formulates pedagogical strategies for teaching literature in ways that develop students' cognitive capabilities for cosmopolitanism, the pursuit of global equality and justice. Several staple classroom texts, such as Things Fall Apart, provide detailed examples for teaching practices.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of navigating the on-going systemic challenges, hardships, and problems facing many indigenous teacher education programs today, helping to foster a commitment to developing quality indigenous teacher education programs that are sustainable, distinctive and excellent. However, despite a growing cadre of indigenous peoples working in teacher education, there is still a noticeable gap between the uptake of what is being taught in conventional teach...

This book explores teacher workplace learning from four different perspectives: social policy, international comparators, multi-professional stances/perspectives and socio-cultural theory. First, it considers the policy and practice context of professional learning in teacher education in England, and the rest of the UK, with particular reference to professional masters level provision. The importance of teachers’ and schools’ perceptions of improvement, development and learning, and the i...