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Recent education reform has emphasized the importance of teacher learning in improving classroom instruction and raising student achievement. This article focuses on teachers' learning opportunities, including formal professional development and on-the-job learning that occurs through interactions with colleagues. Using data from 30 elementary schools in a midsized urban school district, the authors concurrently explore the relationships between teachers' formal professional development and on-the-job learning opportunities and instructional change. Results suggest that formal professional development and on-the-job opportunities to learn are both significantly associated with changes in teachers' instructional practice in mathematics and English language arts.

Over the second half of the twentieth century, changes occurred in parent reports of their engagement in cognitive activities with their young children in the United States. This article argues that the growing trend of parenting for cognitive development in young children in the latter half of the twentieth century is associated with the institutionalization of mass schooling and the legitimization of cognitive development as a central feature of early childhood. The results show that all parents increasingly spent more time engaging in activities related to cognitive development so that by 1991, it was normative behavior. in addition, the results show that mothers' education became an increasingly better predictor of parenting for cognitive development over the second half of the twentieth century but in the last decade of the twentieth century, the association with mothers' education remained constant or diminished slightly as all families increasingly engaged in cognitive development activities. Keywords parenting, early childhood, institutional theory, cognitive development DOI: 10.1177/0038040709356566

I'm thanking for my life And my mother who treats me right My special talents and the performing arts My family and their loving hearts. --Desiree Mom loved me, pop […]

Physics Education Research (PER) practitioners have engaged in substantial curriculum development and dissemination work in recent years. Yet, it appears that this work has had minimal influence on the fundamental teaching practices of the typical physics faculty. To better understand this situation, interviews were conducted with five likely users of physics education research. All reported making changes in their instructional practices and all were influenced, to some extent, by educational research. Yet, none made full use of educational research and most had complaints about their interactions with educational researchers. In this paper we examine how these instructors used educational research in making instructional decisions and identify divergent expectations about how researchers and faculty can work together to improve student learning. Although different instructors emphasized different aspects of this discrepancy between expectations, we believe that they are all related to a single underlying issue: the typical dissemination model is to disseminate curricular innovations and have faculty adopt them with minimal changes, while faculty expect researchers to work with them to incorporate research-based knowledge and materials into their unique instructional situations. Implications and recommendations are discussed. [DOI: 10.1119/1.2800352]

This paper discusses the creation of essential conditions in schools and school jurisdictions in order to support the inclusion of the diverse range of learning preferences and needs found in today's classrooms. In order for inclusion to be successful educators need to work towards an educational climate and set of practices which include the adoption of positive attitudes; supportive policy and leadership; school and classroom processes grounded in research-based practice; flexible curriculum and pedagogy; community involvement; meaningful reflection, and; necessary training and resources., Introduction The discourse around inclusive education is slowly moving from a justification of why the approach is one which should be adopted, to how it can be successfully implemented (Forlin, [...]

Meta-Analysis has been used to study the performance of distance education students in comparison to the traditional students. They have registered a marginal improvement but overall, there is no diminution in the standard of educational effectiveness.

Byline: Ingo Liefner (1) Keywords: funding sources of higher education institutions; national higher education systems; performance of universities; resource allocation in higher education; research universities Abstract: This article analyzes forms of resourceallocation in university systems and theireffects on performance in institutions ofhigher education. Internationally, highereducation systems differ substantially withregard to research and education fundingsources and to ways that resources areallocated. European universities receive themajority of their funding from public sources,but private funding plays a more important rolein Anglo-American systems of higher education.Many governments use competitive elements inthe process of allocating public funds toinstitutions of higher education. Examplesinclude the implementation of performancemeasures through 'formula funding', or resourceallocation on the basis of evaluated projectproposals. Corresponding forms ofperformance-based resource allocation can befound within most higher educationinstitutions. This article analyzes how variousforms of funding and resource allocation affectuniversities at the macro-level and individualbehavior at the micro-level. A theoreticalapproach to this problem suggests thatperformance-based funding tends to bring aboutpositive changes but is also a factor inunintended side effects. Forms of resourceallocation influence the behavior of academicsand managers in higher education, particularlytheir levels of activity as well as the kindsof activities they engage in and their ways ofdealing with risks. Empirical analyses partlyconfirm these hypotheses. It can be shown thatchanges in resource allocation have an impacton the level and type of activity academicsconcentrate on but not on the long-term successof universities. Author Affiliation: (1) Department of Economic Geography, University of Hannover, Schneiderberg 50, 30167, Hannover, Germany Article History: Registration Date: 11/10/2004

Byline: Sunil Chandrasiri (1) Keywords: alternative funding sources; financing; revenue and cost structure; systems and procedures of resource allocation; unit costs Abstract: This paper deals with the financing ofuniversity education in Sri Lanka, which hasadopted pro-market policy reforms over the last22 years. The assessment is based on five maincriteria: adequacy, efficiency, unit costs,systems and procedures of resource allocationand alternative funding sources. The findingsreveal that the universities are faced with anacute shortage of funds and that existingfinancial systems and procedures are controloriented rather than promoting efficiency andquality enhancement. Moreover, the heavilystate dependent university system, particularlyin the area of financing, has failed to keeppace with pro-market policy reforms at nationallevel and, hence, continues to operate within acontrol oriented regulatory framework. In thepresent era of globalization, universities needto be more market oriented in terms ofmanagement, delivery of services and revenuegeneration. Author Affiliation: (1) Department of Economics, University of Colombo, Colombo 3, Sri Lanka e-mail Article History: Registration Date: 11/10/2004

This article examines the role of academic unionism in the perennial crisis bedeviling the university system in Nigeria. It is the contention here that contrary to officially sponsored opinion, the crisis can be linked to external factors, especially the government's handling of industrial disputes. The crisis in the system, which started in the early 1990s, can be seen as the direct off-shoot of the macroeconomic adjustment programs foisted on the country and the subsequent decrease in government funding of the education sector. Nevertheless, the repressive practices of past military regimes have contributed immensely to the crisis, as have the frequent strikes of the the Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities (ASUU). The articles suggests that the crisis can be tackled only with an amelioration of the fundamental problems confronting the system--ranging from underfunding and poor working conditions to excessive government meddling in university governance--and a rethinking of strategies by both the government and ASUU.

This paper was originally presented at a Community Summit organised by the NSW Council of Social Service in Sydney on 9th April 2001 Manuscript received May 2001. Introduction THE AIM [...]

Editors' Note: One of the highlights of the 45th Annual Meeting of the Kentucky-Tennessee Chapter of the American Studies Association in April 2000 was a round-table discussion of the present [...]

Issues are presented concerning the role played by both parents and grandparents in the education of children at school. The influence of culture on the academic achievements of children is discussed.

Issues are presented concerning the role which consumer and marketing research can play in the prevention of an ecological crisis in the 21st Century. Action which can be taken is discussed.

Byline: Muhammad K. Mayanja (1) Abstract: The social background of Makerere students was analysed in order to gain some insight in the distribution of scarce higher education opportunities in Uganda and assess the ability of the students to finance part of their education cost in the process of massifying higher education without diluting the quality of instruction. The findings were that students from well to-do learned families in the more prosperous districts were enjoying the existing performance based subsidies (PBS) and the privately sponsored places and programs (PSPP) which Makerere University had introduced. The interaction of the social and school system acted to reinforce the inequalities at all stages starting from family background, the primary and secondary schools as well as the universities under the present PBS system of admission. The study recommends that while government must remain with the primary responsibility to fund higher education, the public subsidy should become more sensitive to equity and if need be introduced to cost sharing with capacity for positive discrimination. In order to implement this, the existing PBS should gradually be replaced by an equity based subsidy (EBS) starting with 50% of the funds. The funds for EBS should be allocated to the districts which should develop capacity for identification of the most needy students to get the EBS awards. Students from low income families should compete for both PBS at national level and EBS at their district levels. A loan scheme is also recommended for students who may not be sponsored under PBS and EBS as well as for living expenses which should be assumed by the beneficiaries. Author Affiliation: (1) Department of Planning and Development, Makerere University, P.O. Box 7062, Kampala, Uganda Article History: Registration Date: 03/10/2004

South African institutions of higher education (HDI), which is historically the source of anti-apartheid activism, will continue to experience instability in its administrative systems even after South Africa's democracy. The development of methods to create major institutional reform and manage its expected instability poses as challenges to South African HDIs. These could be addressed by focusing developments on student academics and leadership, administrative and management systems, curriculum and programs, a more intensive research culture, and of the educational staff.

Creating groups of maximum diversity, VLSI design (where the objective is to group highly connected modules onto the same circuit), and the final exam scheduling task of assigning exam blocks to exam days, are all mathematically equivalent. VLSI design and exam scheduling are clearly important problems. Forming maximally diverse groups, based upon multiple criteria, has immediate application in academic or training settings where it may be desired to create class sections, or project groups within classes, such that students are immersed in a diverse environment. This research empirically contrasts graph theoretic approaches drawn from VLSI design with heuristics originating from final exam scheduling and the maximum diversity group problem. The methods are tested on a 'real-world' data set and evaluated on the criteria of solution quality and computational resources required. A principal conclusion of this work is that an adaptation of a pair-wise exchange procedure drawn from the final exam scheduling literature outperforms a more sophisticated graph theoretic approach which has previously been shown to be a top performer for VLSI design. Key words - graph theory, timetabling, heuristics, education

Byline: Thomas Flint (1) Abstract: A study of parents' and their children's means of paying for college was conducted to determine if the use of parent contributions, work earnings, or student financial aid shows influence across generations. This study used data from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study of 1990 in a path model with controls for the child's academic ability, gender, declared major, institutional selectivity, tuition cost, and distance from home. Indirect effects are indicated that increase parental cash gifts and loans to the child, mediated by parents' measures of socioeconomic status, the timing of college savings, and the child's degree aspirations. The child's financial aid is also indirectly affected by measures of the parents' socioeconomic status (higher status resulting in less aid). The direct effect of the parent receiving student financial aid is in larger amounts of student aid for the child. No intergenerational effects occur between the parents' use of work earnings to finance college and the amount of work earnings in college for the child. Author Affiliation: (1) Robert Morris College, 180 North LaSalle, Chicago, IL, 60601 Article History: Registration Date: 29/09/2004

A study of the attitudes of 149 primary school teachers in Nigeria reveals that, despite efforts to enhance the overall educational set-up, steps to improve classroom culture, teaching and learning aids and better facilities for teachers are much-needed. However, a bright spot in the bleak education scenario is the marked increase in the number of highly qualified teachers in the nation's schools.

Quality consultant Enid Hilton Brown reveals her point of view regarding how the total quality management principles of W. Edwards Deming apply to the educational system. Brown clarifies that while Deming's philosophycan apply to any organization, application of these principles must not be superficial to achieve established goals. Additionally, Brown explains that Deming never stood for less variation in education and that improvement in the process is the alternative to the grading approach.