Opportunities Lost


Book Description

This section begins by looking at the number of children who are out of schoolsome of whom have attended school at some point. It then presents the structure of national systems of compulsory education in order to identify the trajectories by which pupils progress -- or not -- through the education system. When are children meant to enter school and what are the ages that are supposed to be covered by the system? How effective is the policy concerning compulsory education? Does it cover all children? Do they start on time? The section ends with a description of the main patterns of school progression found across the world.







The Half-Life of Facts


Book Description

New insights from the science of science Facts change all the time. Smoking has gone from doctor recommended to deadly. We used to think the Earth was the center of the universe and that the brontosaurus was a real dinosaur. In short, what we know about the world is constantly changing. Samuel Arbesman shows us how knowledge in most fields evolves systematically and predictably, and how this evolution unfolds in a fascinating way that can have a powerful impact on our lives. He takes us through a wide variety of fields, including those that change quickly, over the course of a few years, or over the span of centuries.




The Schools Our Children Deserve


Book Description

Arguing against the tougher standards rhetoric that marks the current education debate, the author of No Contest and Punished by Rewards writes that such tactics squeeze the pleasure out of learning. Reprint.




Fast Facts about Competency-Based Education in Nursing


Book Description

“Competency-based education…provides an avenue to promote institutional accountability, address employer concerns, and assist with student transfer of knowledge and skills.” -Mary Ellen Smith Glasgow, PhD, RN, ANEF, FAAN Dean and Professor Duquesne University The first book of its kind, this concise, step-by-step guide written for novice and experienced educators distills all the essentials every nursing instructor needs to know to implement a Competency-Based Education (CBE) curriculum, teach with competencies, and evaluate students’ mastery. Grounded in a learner-centered paradigm, CBE focuses on outcomes and skills rather than relying on time-based training. It facilitates in-depth learning that encompasses all three learning domains — cognitive, skills, and attitudes — guided by the individual pace of each student. Fast Facts about Competency-Based Education in Nursing addresses the theory and practical knowledge needed to teach using CBE. Beginning with how to create competencies that align with student learning outcomes, subsequent chapters show how to integrate them into a new or existing nursing curricula. Next, this quick reference shows how to evaluate and assess students using CBE. Finally, it presents how to implement a system of quality improvement to continuously ensure the competencies produce safe, skilled nurses. Brimming with useful tips based on the authors’ extensive experience and abundant practical examples, this is an incomparable reference for any educator seeking superior, more qualitative student assessment and outcomes. Key Features: Demonstrates in detail how to implement CBE and assess students using CBE Illustrates how to integrate CBE into curriculum using an organizing framework Shares expert teaching/learning tips through Evidence-Based Teaching Boxes Helps educators to develop teaching objectives and real-world application processes Describes specific competency-based education curricula Examines how different learning styles thrive in a CBE learning environment Offers separate chapters for using CBE with BSN, MSN, and DNP students










Democracy and Education


Book Description

. Renewal of Life by Transmission. The most notable distinction between living and inanimate things is that the former maintain themselves by renewal. A stone when struck resists. If its resistance is greater than the force of the blow struck, it remains outwardly unchanged. Otherwise, it is shattered into smaller bits. Never does the stone attempt to react in such a way that it may maintain itself against the blow, much less so as to render the blow a contributing factor to its own continued action. While the living thing may easily be crushed by superior force, it none the less tries to turn the energies which act upon it into means of its own further existence. If it cannot do so, it does not just split into smaller pieces (at least in the higher forms of life), but loses its identity as a living thing. As long as it endures, it struggles to use surrounding energies in its own behalf. It uses light, air, moisture, and the material of soil. To say that it uses them is to say that it turns them into means of its own conservation. As long as it is growing, the energy it expends in thus turning the environment to account is more than compensated for by the return it gets: it grows. Understanding the word "control" in this sense, it may be said that a living being is one that subjugates and controls for its own continued activity the energies that would otherwise use it up. Life is a self-renewing process through action upon the environment.




World Development Report 2018


Book Description

Every year, the World Bank’s World Development Report (WDR) features a topic of central importance to global development. The 2018 WDR—LEARNING to Realize Education’s Promise—is the first ever devoted entirely to education. And the time is right: education has long been critical to human welfare, but it is even more so in a time of rapid economic and social change. The best way to equip children and youth for the future is to make their learning the center of all efforts to promote education. The 2018 WDR explores four main themes: First, education’s promise: education is a powerful instrument for eradicating poverty and promoting shared prosperity, but fulfilling its potential requires better policies—both within and outside the education system. Second, the need to shine a light on learning: despite gains in access to education, recent learning assessments reveal that many young people around the world, especially those who are poor or marginalized, are leaving school unequipped with even the foundational skills they need for life. At the same time, internationally comparable learning assessments show that skills in many middle-income countries lag far behind what those countries aspire to. And too often these shortcomings are hidden—so as a first step to tackling this learning crisis, it is essential to shine a light on it by assessing student learning better. Third, how to make schools work for all learners: research on areas such as brain science, pedagogical innovations, and school management has identified interventions that promote learning by ensuring that learners are prepared, teachers are both skilled and motivated, and other inputs support the teacher-learner relationship. Fourth, how to make systems work for learning: achieving learning throughout an education system requires more than just scaling up effective interventions. Countries must also overcome technical and political barriers by deploying salient metrics for mobilizing actors and tracking progress, building coalitions for learning, and taking an adaptive approach to reform.




Top Student, Top School?


Book Description

Most of us think that valedictorians can write their own ticket. By reaching the top of their class they have proven their merit, so their next logical step should be to attend the nation’s very best universities. Yet in Top Student, Top School?, Alexandria Walton Radford, of American Institutes for Research, reveals that many valedictorians do not enroll in prestigious institutions. Employing an original five-state study that surveyed nine hundred public high school valedictorians, she sets out to determine when and why valedictorians end up at less selective schools, showing that social class makes all the difference. Radford traces valedictorians’ paths to college and presents damning evidence that high schools do not provide sufficient guidance on crucial factors affecting college selection, such as reputation, financial aid, and even the application process itself. Left in a bewildering environment of seemingly similar options, many students depend on their parents for assistance—and this allows social class to rear its head and have a profound impact on where students attend. Simply put, parents from less affluent backgrounds are far less informed about differences in colleges’ quality, the college application process, and financial aid options, which significantly limits their child’s chances of attending a competitive school, even when their child has already managed to become valedictorian. Top Student, Top School? pinpoints an overlooked yet critical juncture in the education process, one that stands as a barrier to class mobility. By focusing solely on valedictorians, it shows that students’ paths diverge by social class even when they are similarly well-prepared academically, and this divergence is traceable to specific failures by society, failures that we can and should address. Watch an interview of Alexandria Walton Radford discussing her book here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F81c1D1BpY0