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In this study, a grounded theory approach was adopted to develop the heterospective reflection framework as an explanatory and analytical schema for the investigation of reflection on the action of...

This article presents an overall exploratory comparison of two specific pre-service teacher preparation programmes at two research-intensive institutions of higher education in the USA and Romania. The main conclusions suggest that US and Romanian teacher candidates differ very little in their ratings of their respective programmes in terms of learning in the programme, preparation for general teaching and twenty-first century skills. The largest differences were recorded for the university supervisor and cooperating teacher constructs, which the US teacher candidates rated considerably higher than their Romanian peers, namely in the quality and extent of applied field and clinical experiences, which merit further exploration.

This article examines the implementation of a wiki-type platform for lesson planning for teacher candidates in an undergraduate general instructional methods course in the teacher education program of a Midwestern university in the United States. The study draws on the results of two separate sets of analysis involving 159 participants. Teacher candidates in this course were required to post the first five lesson plans of their unit plans to the course wiki. Each teacher candidate was required to analyze several classmates' lesson plans and provide constructive feedback that the authors of the lessons could incorporate in improving their unit plans. This exercise was meant to create a sense of constructive approach to lesson planning and encourage teacher candidates to think of their peers as resources to whom they could turn for advice in the process of designing lesson plans in an emerging community of practice, all while availing themselves of the flexibility of the wiki's collaborative features. Resul...

This article conducts an exploration of Romania's European integration process through higher education. It contends that integration occurs at formal and informal levels through institutional norms and human agency, respectively. Through theoretical and empirical analysis, the authors discuss the modalities through which normative European integration is undergirded by human transactions stemming from individual experiences with European practices. Romanian higher education serves as an aggregating and filtering system for the formation of an intellectual realm conducive to the country's deeper European integration.

This article reports on the experiences and perspectives of Romanian students participating in the ERASMUS Programme, regarding the benefits and value of academic mobility. It situates their accounts in the framework of internationalization and Europeanization processes occurring in Romanian higher education. The study draws on primary data collected from a sample of Romanian students via an online questionnaire. A total of 522 valid responses were received from students at 37 higher education institutions in Romania. Student respondents indicated their academic experiences in other EU member states represented an investment in their professional and personal development. However, they were less convinced these experiences could assist them in improving the overall economic and social conditions in Romania or that it would serve them in the programs of studies at their home institutions. Further issues addressed were credit transfer, financial support and differences in academic programs between ...