Education

General education is the core of the undergraduate experience. It provides a lasting foundation for lifelong learning, application, and appreciation of the various approaches to understanding individuals, cultures, and the world we live in. First-year experience programs are becoming virtually universal in colleges and universities, and first-year seminars often are integrated into general education programs to promote student retention, engagement, and success. The assessment of these institution-wide efforts is particularly challenging, but many campuses have made substantial progress from which we can learn.
Written for college and university administrators, assessment officers, faculty, and staff who support general education and first-year experience programs, this book is a pragmatic guide for developing, aligning, and assessing general education programs in meaningful, manageable, and sustainable ways. It presents a variety of approaches to help readers understand what other campuses are doing and develop a repertoire of methods so they can make informed decisions about their own programs.
Contents include:
• General education and first-year experience programs
• Steps in assessment planning and implementation
• Assessment in the context of accreditation and learning-centered institutions
• An array of direct and indirect assessment strategies and how to choose among them
• Published tools for assessing general education and first-year experience programs
• Alternative models for assessing general education programs
• Strategies for articulating general education and first-year experience learning outcomes
• Examples of learning outcomes and assessment studies from more than 100 community and 4-year colleges and universities
• Assessing the alignment of the curriculum, pedagogy, grading, and institutional support with learning outcomes
• Using the course certification process to promote a cohesive general education program
• Developing an effective campus infrastructure to support assessment and student success

The Classic Guide for Educators of Any Denomination

What mission calls us to teach? How do societal issues-social oppression, poverty, politics-affect what we teach, how we teach it, and how people learn? Who are our students? What and when are they ready to learn? Once we understand these foundations, how can we facilitate an educational experience that has the power to shape and transform people and communities in life-giving ways of faith?

In this classic text, Thomas Groome asks and answers these central questions, providing a comprehensive integration of the history, theory, and practice of modern religious education for a new generation of educators. His self-reflective approach-shared praxis-will inspire school teachers, students of religious education, pastors, parents, and religious educators in local churches who want to understand themselves, their mission, and their surroundings-to inform, form, and transform their students' lives.

"Anyone tugged by the calling at the heart of education or religious life can only cheer for the republication of this classic book."-Robert Kegan, Harvard Graduate School of Education

"Whether returning Christian Religious Education or reading it for the first time, readers will discover freshness leaping from the page; you will soon know why this formative book of the past is a beacon for the future-informative, inspiring, and wise!"-Mary Elizabeth Moore, professor of theology and Christian education, Claremont School of Theology

In real life, Mitchell Stevens is a professor in bustling New York. But for a year and a half, he worked in the admissions office of a bucolic New England college that is known for its high academic standards, beautiful campus, and social conscience. Ambitious high schoolers and savvy guidance counselors know that admission here is highly competitive. But creating classes, Stevens finds, is a lot more complicated than most people imagine.

Admissions officers love students but they work for the good of the school. They must bring each class in "on budget," burnish the statistics so crucial to institutional prestige, and take care of their colleagues in the athletic department and the development office. Stevens shows that the job cannot be done without "systematic preferencing," and racial affirmative action is the least of it. Kids have an edge if their parents can pay full tuition, if they attend high schools with exotic zip codes, if they are athletes--especially football players--and even if they are popular.

With novelistic flair, sensitivity to history, and a keen eye for telling detail, Stevens explains how elite colleges and universities have assumed their central role in the production of the nation's most privileged classes. Creating a Class makes clear that, for better or worse, these schools now define the standards of youthful accomplishment in American culture more generally.

When parents are asked what they want for their children, they usually answer that they want their children to be happy. Why, then, is happiness rarely mentioned as a goal of education? This book explores what we might teach if we were to take happiness seriously as a goal of education. It asks, first, what it means to be happy and, second, how we can help children to understand it. It notes that we have to develop a capacity for unhappiness and a willingness to alleviate the suffering of others to be truly happy. Criticizing our current almost exclusive emphasis on economic well-being and pleasure, Nel Noddings discusses the contributions of making a home, parenting, cherishing a place, the development of character, interpersonal growth, finding work that one loves, and participating in a democratic way of life. Finally, she explores ways in which to make schools and classrooms cheerful places. Nell Noddings is Lee L. Jacks Professor of Education, Emerita, at Stanford University. She is past president of the Philosophy of Education Society and of the John Dewey Society. In addition to twelve books, she is the author of more than 170 articles and chapters on various topics ranging from the ethics of care to mathematical problem solving. Her latest books are Starting at Home: Caring and Social Policy (University of California Press) and Educating Moral People: A Caring Alternative to Character Education (Teachers College Press), both published in 2002.

"Outstanding...should be on every home educator's reference bookshelf."—Homeschooling Today

In this fully updated edition, George Graham, PhD, presents a concise, practical, user-friendly view of what it takes to become a master teacher of children's physical education. The book is contemporary and easy to apply in real-world teaching situations. Dr. Graham knows kids—and the challenges of teaching them.

Teaching Children Physical Education, Third Edition, is valuable to future and veteran teachers alike. Future teachers will learn the skills and techniques that master teachers employ, and experienced teachers will be challenged to consider some new techniques for designing their classes, developing lessons, and adjusting tasks for individual children. All readers will learn the skills and techniques that successful teachers use to make their classes vibrant, fun, and developmentally appropriate.

Graham, a university professor and public school physical education instructor who was recently named to the NASPE Hall of Fame, deftly weaves research-based information with firsthand experience in a conversational tone. The result is an easy-to-read book rich with practical advice based on what really works in today's gymnasiums and playgrounds.

Bound into every copy of the book is a DVD featuring video clips showing teachers in real-life situations as well as easy-to-print worksheets from the book. The video clips illustrate key techniques and strategies from the book. Those techniques and strategies include how to

- motivate children to practice,

- build positive feelings,

- minimize off-task behavior and discipline problems,

- create an atmosphere of learning,

- maximize learning,

- develop lesson content,

- use a problem-solving approach,

- observe and analyze,

- provide feedback, and

- assess children's (and your own) progress.

The book includes many practical teaching scenarios that illustrate the decision-making process that master teachers use in virtually every lesson they teach. Other reader-friendly features include

- chapter objectives,

- author insights that make the book come alive, and

- reflection questions that help teachers consider how well a lesson worked and what would have happened if they had taken a different approach.

This new edition is also backed by easily downloadable ancillaries for course instructors, including an instructor guide and test and presentation packages.

Teaching Children Physical Education has become the foundation for the shared technical language that is used in many college and university PE teacher education programs. If you're looking for an affordable text or reference that focuses on pedagogy in a down-to-earth style, Teaching Children Physical Education, Third Edition is a book you'll turn to again and again on your way to becoming a master teacher.

Distance education technology combines communication with educational and intelligent methods to develop software and hardware systems that support learning activities with spatiotemporal flexibilities. Future Directions in Distance Learning and Communication Technologies presents theoretical studies and practical solutions for engineers, educational professionals, and graduate students in the research areas of e-learning, distance education, and instructional design. This book provides readers with cutting-edge solutions and research directions pertinent to these evolving fields.

Fifty Modern Thinkers on Education looks at fifty of the twentieth century's most significant contributors to the debate on education. Among those included are:
* Pierre Bourdieu
* Elliot Eisner
* Hans J. Eysenck
* Michel Focault
* Henry Giroux
* Jurgen Habermas
* Susan Isaacs
* A.S. Neill
* Herbert Read
* Simone Weill.
Together with Fifty Major Thinkers on Education
this book provides a unique history of educational thinking. Each essay gives key biographical information, an outline of the individual's principal achievements and activities, an assessment of his or her impact and influence and a list of their major writings and suggested further reading.

A must have resource for school leaders and personnel, Special Education Law and Practice in Public Schools is dedicated to understanding the complex laws and issues surrounding students with special needs.  Broad in coverage, it discusses current topics such as: the reauthorization of IDEA, NCLB, and 504; working with families; IEPs; assessment; staff relationships and staffing patters; due process hearing, mediation and complaints; school-wide discipline, and strategies for specific populations ( infant/toddler, preschool, secondary school, etc.) Filled with ready-to-use samples and inclusion strategies, the book adheres to school administration and CEC standards and is a conclusive resource for practicing professionals.  

On Teaching and Learning takes the ideas explored in renowned educator Jane Vella’s best-selling book Learning to Listen, Learning to Teach to the next level and explores how dialogue education has been applied in educational settings around the world. Throughout the book, she shows how to put the principles and practices of dialogue education into action and uses illustrative stories and examples from her extensive travels. Dialogue education values inquiry, integrity, and commitment to equity—values that are also central to democracy. Learners are treated as beings worthy of respect, recognized for the knowledge and experience they bring to the learning experience. Dialogue education emphasizes the importance of safety and belonging. It is an approach that welcomes one’s certainties and one’s questions.