The Impact of School Infrastructure on Learning

The Impact of School Infrastructure on Learning
Author: Peter Barrett
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 71
Release: 2019-02-04
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1464813787

'The Impact of School Infrastructure on Learning: A Synthesis of the Evidence provides an excellent literature review of the resources that explore the areas of focus for improved student learning, particularly the aspiration for “accessible, well-built, child-centered, synergetic and fully realized learning environments.†? Written in a style which is both clear and accessible, it is a practical reference for senior government officials and professionals involved in the planning and design of educational facilities, as well as for educators and school leaders. --Yuri Belfali, Head of Division, Early Childhood and Schools, OECD Directorate for Education and Skills This is an important and welcome addition to the surprisingly small, evidence base on the impacts of school infrastructure given the capital investment involved. It will provide policy makers, practitioners, and those who are about to commission a new build with an important and comprehensive point of reference. The emphasis on safe and healthy spaces for teaching and learning is particularly welcome. --Harry Daniels, Professor of Education, Department of Education, Oxford University, UK This report offers a useful library of recent research to support the, connection between facility quality and student outcomes. At the same time, it also points to the unmet need for research to provide verifiable and reliable information on this connection. With such evidence, decisionmakers will be better positioned to accurately balance the allocation of limited resources among the multiple competing dimensions of school policy, including the construction and maintenance of the school facility. --David Lever, K-12 Facility Planner, Former Executive Director of the Interagency Committee on School Construction, Maryland Many planners and designers are seeking a succinct body of research defining both the issues surrounding the global planning of facilities as well as the educational outcomes based on the quality of the space provided. The authors have finally brought that body of evidence together in this well-structured report. The case for better educational facilities is clearly defined and resources are succinctly identified to stimulate the dialogue to come. We should all join this conversation to further the process of globally enhancing learning-environment quality! --David Schrader, AIA, Educational Facility Planner and Designer, Former Chairman of the Board of Directors, Association for Learning Environments (A4LE)

Funds of Knowledge

Funds of Knowledge
Author: Norma Gonzalez
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2006-04-21
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1135614059

The concept of "funds of knowledge" is based on a simple premise: people are competent and have knowledge, and their life experiences have given them that knowledge. The claim in this book is that first-hand research experiences with families allow one to document this competence and knowledge, and that such engagement provides many possibilities for positive pedagogical actions. Drawing from both Vygotskian and neo-sociocultural perspectives in designing a methodology that views the everyday practices of language and action as constructing knowledge, the funds of knowledge approach facilitates a systematic and powerful way to represent communities in terms of the resources they possess and how to harness them for classroom teaching. This book accomplishes three objectives: It gives readers the basic methodology and techniques followed in the contributors' funds of knowledge research; it extends the boundaries of what these researchers have done; and it explores the applications to classroom practice that can result from teachers knowing the communities in which they work. In a time when national educational discourses focus on system reform and wholesale replicability across school sites, this book offers a counter-perspective stating that instruction must be linked to students' lives, and that details of effective pedagogy should be linked to local histories and community contexts. This approach should not be confused with parent participation programs, although that is often a fortuitous consequence of the work described. It is also not an attempt to teach parents "how to do school" although that could certainly be an outcome if the parents so desired. Instead, the funds of knowledge approach attempts to accomplish something that may be even more challenging: to alter the perceptions of working-class or poor communities by viewing their households primarily in terms of their strengths and resources, their defining pedagogical characteristics. Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing Practices in Households, Communities, and Classrooms is a critically important volume for all teachers and teachers-to-be, and for researchers and graduate students of language, culture, and education.

Teacher Quality, Instructional Quality and Student Outcomes

Teacher Quality, Instructional Quality and Student Outcomes
Author: Trude Nilsen
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 167
Release: 2016-09-19
Genre: Education
ISBN: 3319412523

This volume offers insights from modeling relations between teacher quality, instructional quality and student outcomes in mathematics across countries. The relations explored take the educational context, such as school climate, into account. The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement’s Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) is the only international large-scale study possessing a design framework that enables investigation of relations between teachers, their teaching, and student outcomes in mathematics. TIMSS provides both student achievement data and contextual background data from schools, teachers, students and parents, for over 60 countries. This book makes a major contribution to the field of educational effectiveness, especially teaching effectiveness, where cross-cultural comparisons are scarce. For readers interested in teacher quality, instructional quality, and student achievement and motivation in mathematics, the comparisons across cultures, grades, and time are insightful and thought-provoking. For readers interested in methodology, the advanced analytical methods, combined with application of methods new to educational research, illustrate interesting novel directions in methodology and the secondary analysis of international large-scale assessment (ILSA).

Quality in Teaching

Quality in Teaching
Author: Wilfred Carr
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 244
Release: 1989
Genre: Teachers
ISBN: 9781850005476

offering a critique of the current educational rhetoric and by providing arguments for reviving the moral and social dimensions of teaching, this book aims to offer teachers and teacher educators the means to advance The Notion Of "Teaching Quality".

Handbook of Research on Teacher Education

Handbook of Research on Teacher Education
Author: Myint Swe Khine
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 976
Release: 2022-03-18
Genre: Education
ISBN: 981169785X

This comprehensive book presents emerging research findings and promising reform practices in the field of teacher education, curriculum, assessment, teaching and learning approaches, pedagogical innovations, and professional development in educating the next generation of globally competent students. It reflects the current trends and highlights contemporary teacher education programs in twenty greater Asian countries and regions. It offers insight into improving teacher education in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Indonesia, Brunei, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, and Macau. The handbook contains chapters written by experienced international teacher educators who draw on their experience and expertise to perennial issues and formidable challenges in teacher preparation and meaningful school reforms. This volume is a valuable resource and essential companion for teacher educators, faculty members, staff developers, trainee teachers, undergraduate and postgraduate students, researchers, school leaders, policy-makers, and professional learning communities to refresh their knowledge and improve their understanding. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in evolving issues in teacher education.

Reform and Development of Educational System

Reform and Development of Educational System
Author: Ling Li
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 471
Release: 2017-12-29
Genre: Education
ISBN: 3662555255

In this book, the authors pursue quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods approaches, conducting hundreds of large-scale surveys and in-depth interviews in 679 schools, 67 counties and 13 provinces throughout China. They also conducted longitudinal case studies in five municipalities and provinces to better reflect education reform and development in different education levels or sectors. The authors used national statistical data from the 1970s to 2013, as well as a wealth of first-hand documents and data from different levels of educational departments in schools, counties, municipals and provinces and “grass-roots” input from 253 teachers, principals, education administrators and students. The authors applied SEM, HLM, GCM, and many other statistic techniques and qualitative methods to analyse the data and materials in order to explore correlations between development and reform, internal and external factors in educational reforms, as well as strategies for resolving core issues. Their findings indicate that institutional reforms concerning financial investments, allocation of teaching resources, allocation of facilities, curricula design systems, and political, economic, social system reforms all contribute to the development of different levels and types of education in different modes and to different extents. Topics of particular interest include five case studies conducted in five different municipalities and provinces that showcase the nation’s education reform and development in a specific model and on the basis of substantial data. Further, milestone events regarding educational reform and development that have taken place in China since 2013 are examined. As a unique feature, the book also includes 353 diagrams and tables on the development and reform of education in China, offering extensive and up-to-date information on a part of the world that often remains difficult to access. The book provides an expansive and in-depth examination of the nation’s education reform and development, from its historical roots to the present, and combining official and “grass-roots” standpoints. It will help readers to understand why and how Chinese education could lead students to win in international comparisons like PISA while at the same time often being the target of scathing criticism, as well as how the nation is now working to provide a better education to serve the world’s largest population.

Making Sense of Research

Making Sense of Research
Author: Elaine K. McEwan
Publisher: Corwin
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2003-03-14
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780761977087

This book is for practitioners at all levels, from teachers making site-specific decisions to administrators making schoolwide and policy decisions.