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Quiet Riot offers an anthropological critique of teaching and learning in two U.S. high schools over a twenty-seven year period. Based on the author's experiences shadowing two average students in 1983 and 2009, it presents detailed observations that powerfully capture the reality of student experiences in school. Despite many changes in schools over this near thirty year period, observations show a remarkable continuity in what goes on in classrooms. This is because the culture of teaching and learning in classrooms has remained relatively unchanged. While teachers are sincere, they also undermine their own efforts in a variety of ways. Students are disengaged not because they do not care, but because the instruction they receive systematically prevents them from engaging at a deep intellectual level with subject matter. Observations in high schools are supplemented with elementary school observations that demonstrate the early trajectories of disengagement that capture many students. The book illustrates the powerful patterning of the culture of teaching and learning in schooling that undermines the true goals of an authentic education.

There has been much attention given to the achievement gap between white and minority students, especially African American children. Through research and years of experience, the author breaks down the cultural influences on children's learning styles and provides a practical approach to helping black children thrive in the classroom.For black children, which Sullivan defines as those of African descent, there is a disconnect between learning preferences and learning environments that must be bridged before the achievement gap can be closed. This hands-on resource is filled with effective strategies and best practices to help early childhood educators expand their'toolbox'for supporting children. Increasing cultural intelligence will allow us to work across the many differences in our classrooms. As our schools become more diverse, cultural competency will be an increasingly important skill for teacher's efficacy and children's success. By cultivating the individual genius of each child and meeting children where they are today, we can invigorate the education system and provide children high-quality early education experiences.Debra Ren-Etta Sullivan, EdD, is the cofounder and president of Praxis Institute for Early Childhood Education. She has more than twenty-five years of experience in higher education as a teacher, researcher, and administrator.

The “powerful” (Michelle Alexander) exploration of the harsh and harmful experiences confronting Black girls in schools, and how we can instead orient schools toward their flourishing On the day fifteen-year-old Diamond from the Bay Area stopped going to school, she was expelled for lashing out at peers who constantly harassed and teased her for something everyone on the staff had missed: she was being trafficked for sex. After months on the run, she was arrested and sent to a detention center for violating a court order to attend school. In a work that Lisa Delpit calls “imperative reading,” Monique W. Morris chronicles the experiences of Black girls across the country whose complex lives are misunderstood, highly judged—by teachers, administrators, and the justice system—and degraded by the very institutions charged with helping them flourish. Painting “a chilling picture of the plight of black girls and women today” (The Atlantic), Morris exposes a world of confined potential and supports the rising movement to challenge the policies, practices, and cultural illiteracy that push countless students out of school and into unhealthy, unstable, and often unsafe futures. At a moment when Black girls are the fastest growing population in the juvenile justice system, Pushout is truly a book “for everyone who cares about children” (Washington Post). Book cover photograph by Brittsense/brittsense.com.

Educators and school psychologists throughout the country are working with growing numbers of English language learners (ELLs), but often feel unprepared to help these students excel. This highly informative book presents evidence-based strategies for promoting proficiency in academic English and improving outcomes in a response-to-intervention (RTI) framework. Illustrated with a detailed case example, the book describes best practices for working with K-5 ELLs in all stages of RTI: universal screening, progress monitoring, data collection, decision making, and intensifying instruction. In a large-size format for easy photocopying, the book includes more than two dozen reproducible worksheets. Purchasers get access to a Web page where they can download and print the reproducible materials. This book is in The Guilford Practical Intervention in the Schools Series, edited by Sandra M. Chafouleas.

How are the processes of increasing ethnic and racial diversity reflected in European schools? How do children and educators experience and perceive interethnic relations in schools? This book examines the issues of interethnic coexistence, the management of ethnic diversity, xenophobic and racial attitudes and, in particular, the under-researched topic of interethnic violence among children in the school environment. Drawing together qualitative and quantitative data across five European countries it offers an insight into the views, personal experiences and responses of children from different ethnic backgrounds to interethnic violence in European schools. International contributors from England, Slovenia, Cyprus, Italy and Austria come together to provide a comparative study of experiences of interethnic conflict and violence in primary and secondary school classrooms. Each chapter focuses on positive measures that can combat discrimination, providing examples of good practice as well as considering the position of the school in promoting citizenship in an increasingly global world. By examining the experiences and perspectives of children, educators and experts, the book provides up-to-date research findings in the field and suggests key mechanisms for addressing interethnic violence in schools. With support, schools can play a key role in alleviating interethnic tensions and combatting ethnocentrism through the implementation of strong policies, acting as ‘protected spaces'. Children's Voices: Studies of interethnic conflict and violence in European schools is of international relevance both within Europe, and beyond, and will appeal to researchers, teachers and policy makers concerned with race equality in the classroom.

The impact of globalisation and aggressive marketing by universities has increased the flow of international or culturally diverse students enrolling in postgraduate research degree programs outside their own countries. As access to postgraduate education widens, more local culturally diverse and Indigenous students are also enrolling in higher degree studies. As a result, significantly more academics now engage in intercultural supervision or supervising students who are culturally different to themselves. This book argues that empowering intercultural supervision can result from more nuanced, critical and theoretically-based understandings of time, place and knowledge. It shows how a range of ‘Southern'theories (including postcolonial, Indigenous, feminist, social and cultural geography theories) about history, geography and knowledge can offer fresh insights into intercultural supervision. The author suggests that by using the conceptual tools offered by these Southern theories, the more complex but potentially rich aspects of intercultural supervision can be better understood and grappled with. In particular, these theories enable us to challenge assumptions about the universality and timelessness of Northern knowledge, and to create space for the recovery and further development of Southern, Eastern and Indigenous knowledges within intercultural supervision.This book will be of value to academic supervisors and postgraduate students, especially those engaged in intercultural supervision, as well as researchers and scholars in the field of higher education.

Education officials, specialist leaders and teachers have all been involved in different ways to bring about school reform in Hong Kong. This book is a very current and relevant analysis of this reform, highlighting the way in which agencies have cooperated in bringing about change over the last several decades. Through a process of wide-ranging decision-making, collaboration and consensus among key bodies and agencies of change, some important developments have occurred. The reforms collectively have had, and are continuing to have, a major impact upon schooling in Hong Kong.This volume represents a range of authors and specialists involved in a number of different reforms, covering themes such as historical policy contexts, new curriculum approaches, changing pedagogies, school leadership, implementation and change, and assessment and evaluation. This is a very topical book which provides a probing analysis of how an Asian education system has been able to reach and maintain a very high performing level.

With the American dream progressively elusive for and exclusive of Latinos, there is an urgent need for empirically and conceptually based macro-level policy solutions for Latino education. Going beyond just exposing educational inequalities, this volume provides intelligent and pragmatic research-based policy directions and tools for change for U.S. Latino Education and other multicultural contexts. U.S. Latinos and Education Policy is organized round three themes: education as both product and process of social and historical events and practices; the experiences of young immigrants in schools in both U.S. and international settings and policy approaches to address their needs; and situated perspectives on learning among immigrant students across school, home, and community.With contributions from leading scholars, including Luis Moll, Eugene E. Garcia, Richard P. Durán, Sonia Nieto, Angela Valenzuela, Alejandro Portes and Barbara Flores, this volume enhances existing discussions by showcasing how researchers working both within and in collaboration with Latino communities have employed multiple analytic frameworks; illustrating how current scholarship and culturally oriented theory can serve equity-oriented practice; and, focusing attention on ethnicity in context and in relation to the interaction of developmental and cultural factors. The theoretical and methodological perspectives integrate praxis research from multiple disciplines and apply this research directly to policy.

This book focuses on the problem of religious diversity, civil dialogue, and religion education in public schools, exploring the ways in which atheists, secularists, fundamentalists, and mainstream religionists come together in the public sphere, examining how civil discourse about religion fit swithin the ideals of the American political and pedagogical systems and how religious studies education can help to foster civility and toleration.

What kind of social studies knowledge can stimulate a critical and ethical dialog with the past and present?'Re-Membering'History in Student and Teacher Learning answers this question by explaining and illustrating a process of historical recovery that merges Afrocentric theory and principles of culturally informed curricular practice to reconnect multiple knowledge bases and experiences. In the case studies presented, K-12 practitioners, teacher educators, preservice teachers, and parents use this praxis to produce and then study the use of democratized student texts; they step outside of reproducing standard school experiences to engage in conscious inquiry about their shared present as a continuance of a shared past. This volume exemplifies not only why instructional materials—including most so-called multicultural materials—obstruct democratized knowledge, but also takes the next step to construct and then study how're-membered'student texts can be used. Case study findings reveal improved student outcomes, enhanced relationships between teachers and families and teachers and students, and a closer connection for children and adults to their heritage.

'This book is a must-read for anyone who plans to study abroad in China. It is detailed, extensive, and packed with extremely useful and up-to-date information provided by someone who has first-hand knowledge and who has done substantial research in the subject. McAloon knows China well. Most importantly, he knows what China-bound individuals need to know in order to make the most out of their study in China experience. I will definitely recommend this book to my students.--Yanfang Tang, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Chinese Studies, and the Director of the Chinese Studies Program at the College of William & Mary'

In the first book on Aztec dance in the United States, Ernesto Colín combines cultural anthropology, educational theory, and postcolonial theory to create an innovative, interdisciplinary, long-term ethnography of an Aztec dance circle and makes a case for the use of the metaphor of palimpsest as an ethnographic research tool.

What is globalisation?How are its effects felt by different people across the world?How can we help young people flourish in a world characterised by globalisation?Conflict, poverty, breaches of human rights, and environmental sustainability are everyday issues for global citizens today, old and young. Global Learning and Education presents a detailed and challenging introduction to a central concern facing education systems and curricula around the world: How young people understand and experience globalisation and how meaningful global learning can be developed. Encouraging a critical and reflective approach in order to advance understanding of a range of theoretical and practical factors, it considers the meaning and definitions of globalisation, global citizenship and global education. Global Learning and Education explores key issues including interconnectedness and interdependency, cultural diversity, social justice and sustainable development. It considers how global learning should and can imbue all aspects of education, within curriculum subjects, through project based learning, and through extra-curricular activities that help students participate and engage in global issues. It argues the importance of the mission and ethos of a school itself, of shaping global learning for different educational contexts, and of ensuring teaching and learning meets the needs of individual learners.Global Learning and Education is a comprehensive, thought-provoking - sometimes contentious - introduction for educationalists concerned with what globalisation means for our young people. Illustrated throughout with case studies that seek to inspire creativity and hope, and including questions and suggested reading for further investigation, it is essential reading for all those involved in the teaching and learning of young people, as well as those studying this vital topic on Education Studies and Masters level courses.

This book is designed to challenge dominant educational discourses on the underachievement of Black children and to engender new understandings in initial teacher education (ITE) about Black children's education and achievement. Based in empirical case study work and theoretical insights drawn from Bourdieu, hooks, Freire, and Giroux, Maylor calls for Black children's underachievement to be (re)theorised and (re)conceptualised within teacher education, and for students and teachers to become more'race'- and'difference'-minded in their practice.

Language is perhaps the most common issue that surfaces in debates over school reform, and plays a vital role in virtually everything we are involved. This edited volume explores linguistic apartheid, or the disappearance of certain languages through cultural genocide by dominant European colonizers and American neoconservative groups. These groups have historically imposed hegemonic languages, such as English and French, on colonized people at the expense of the native languages of the latter. The book traces this form of apartheid from the colonial era to the English-only movement in the United States, and proposes alternative ways to counter linguistic apartheid that minority groups and students have faced in schools and society at large.Contributors to this volume provide a historical overview of the way many languages labeled as inferior, minority, or simply savage have been attacked and pushed to the margins, discriminating against and attempting to silence the voice of those who spoke and continue to speak these languages. Further, they demonstrate the way and the extent to which such actions have affected the cultural life, learning process, identity, and the subjective and material conditions of linguistically and historically marginalized groups, including students.

This book explores social topics and experiences that illustrate the various ways in which the family unit influences and impacts college students. In the text, the authors not only explore family memories, but also challenge the traditional lack of inclusion and appreciation for “family” as knowledge producers and educational allies. This book spotlights the family unit as a critical factor within the educational experience—one that prepares, supports, and sustains educational achievement through both everyday simple lessons and critical and difficult family challenges. Through these experiences, families teach the lessons of survival that often help students to persist in college.

This book presents a novel perspective on neocolonialism, education and other related issues. It unveils the effects of neocolonialism on the learning and well-being of students and workers, including marginalized groups such as Native Americans, Latino/as, and African Americans. It is a collection of in-depth interviews with and heartfelt essays by committed social justice educators and scholars genuinely concerned with educational issues situated in the context of western neocolonialism and neoliberalism.This dialogical way of discussing important issues and co-constructing knowledge can be traced back to ancient philosophers, who used dialogue as a form of inquiry to explore and analyze educational, socio-economic and political issues facing the world. It will cover many interwoven and pressing issues echoed through authentic voices of progressive educators and scholars.

In the World Library of Educationalists series, international experts themselves compile career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces - extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, major theoretical and practical contributions - so the world can read them in a single manageable volume. In a career spanning four decades, S. Gopinathan is considered by many to be a pillar of teacher education in Singapore. He has played a key role in the establishment and transformation of Singapore's education system, pioneering many programmes and advising on policy both nationally and internationally. In the process, he has contributed over 25 books (authored, co-authored and edited) and 115 articles and book chapters to the field, and continues to inspire and empower younger colleagues in the region to challenge the cause for excellence in education and education reform. In Education and the Nation State, S. Gopinathan brings together 14 of his key writings in one volume. Starting with a specially written introduction, which gives an overview of Gopinathan's career and contextualises his selection, the essays are then arranged thematically, providing an overview not just of his own career, but also reflecting the development and key concerns of education in the nation state that is Singapore.

While there is considerable literature on social inequality and education, there is little recent work which explores notions of difference and diversity in relation to'race,'class and gender. This edited text aims to bring together researchers in the field of education located across many international contexts such as the UK, Australia, USA, New Zealand and Europe. Contributors investigate the ways in which dominant perspectives on'difference,'intersectionality and institutional structures underpin and reinforce educational inequality in schools and higher education. They emphasize the importance of international perspectives and innovative methodological approaches to examining these areas, and seek to locate the dimensions of difference within recent theoretical discourses, with an emphasis on'race,'class and gender as key categories of analysis.

What better way to be introduced to the contrasting interplay between black and white than with eye-catching works of art. This bi-lingual edition also introduces children at a young age to both English and Spanish.Art for this book was selected from the collection of the San Antonio Museum of Art, one of the leading art museums in the United States with a collection spanning a broad range of history and world cultures.

With ArteKids, children discover the world of art and learn English and Spanish at the same time. Introduce your child to the fundamentals of animal life by connecting them to the world of art in a unique, fun, and colorful way. The book incorporates artwork found in the collections of the San Antonio Museum of Art with phrases and words in English and Spanish to make bilingual learning and art exciting for eager young learners and their teachers and parents.

Many teachers enter the profession with a desire to'make a difference.'But given who most teachers are, where they come from, and what pressure they feel to comply with existing school policies, how can they take up this charge? Practice What You Teach follows three different groups of educators to explore the challenges of developing and supporting teachers'sense of social justice and activism at various stages of their careers: White pre-service teachers typically enrolled in most teacher education programs, a group of new teachers attempting to integrate social justice into their teaching, and experienced educators who see their teaching and activism as inextricably linked. Teacher educator Bree Picower delves into each of these group's triumphs and challenges, providing strategies and suggestions for all teachers along with her in-depth analysis. By understanding all these challenges, pre-service and in-service teachers, along with teacher educators, will be in a better position to develop the kind of political analysis that lays the foundation for teacher activism. This timely resource helps prepare and support all educators to stand up for equity and justice both inside and outside of the classroom and offers a more nuanced portrait of what the struggle to truly'make a difference'looks like.

A CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title 2012!Unlikely Allies in the Academy brings the voices of women of Color and White women together for much-overdue conversations about race. These well-known contributors use narrative to expose their stories, which are at times messy and always candid. However, the contributors work through the discomfort, confusion, and frustration in order to have honest conversations about race and racism.The narratives from Chicanas, Indigenous, Asian American, African American, and White women academicians explore our past, present, and future, what separates us, and how to communicate honestly in an effort to become allies. Chapters discuss the need to interrupt and disrupt the norms of interaction and engagement by allowing for the messiness of discomfort in frank discussion. The dialogues model how to engage in difficult dialogues about race and begin to illuminate the unspoken misunderstandings about how White women and women of Color engage one another. This valuable book offers strategies, ideas, and the hope for moving toward true alliances in the academy and to improve race relations. This important resource is for Higher Education administrators, faculty, and scholars grappling with the intersectionality of race and gender as they work to understand, study, and create more inclusive climates.

As editors of Breaking the Mold of School Instruction and Organization: Innovative and Successful Practices for the 21st Century (2010) and Breaking the Mold of Preservice and Inservice Teacher Education: Innovative and Successful Practices for the 21st Century (2011), we have explored innovative practices, many of which represent issues of diversity from multiple perspectives and schools of thought. As we have considered relevant factors, problems, and circumstances that influence effective education, we most readily recognize that within the twenty-first century, issues of diversity have become even more profound. This book, the third in the Breaking the Mold series, was conceptualized with the hope that by sharing compelling stories of successful innovation, advocacy, and social justice, more children and their families will be affected in positive ways. The narratives presented in this volume are rooted in classrooms, districts, communities, teacher preparation programs from around the United States and many corners of the world. The unique initiatives portrayed here represent collaborative efforts by students, teachers, administrators, professors, parents, boards of education, and global citizens who believe in change and transformation for the betterment of education.

This book provides an original perspective on a range of controversial issues in educational and social research through case studies of multi-disciplinary and mixed-method research involving children, teachers, schools and communities in Europe and the developing world. These case studies from researchers'across continents'and'across disciplines'explore a range of interesting issues, including the relevance of research approaches to very different national settings, and to the kinds of questions being asked; the barriers of language and culture between researcher and researched; articulating the thinking and feelings of very young children; the challenges of dealing with'partiality'of data; issues of identity, subjectivity and reflexivity; and transferring research approaches from one national setting to the problems posed in another.

Bringing together educators from a range of backgrounds - psychology, sociology, social work, counseling, and teaching - this volume shows how Asian cultural values and beliefs can provide a lens through which to understand and envision how curriculum and pedagogy can be creatively adapted, not only in a local Chinese classroom context, but in a global context as well.

As countries become increasingly interdependent, student populations in the United States are becoming more culturally diverse. These students'transnational perspectives present significant challenges to teachers, but a disconnect exists between the skills teachers need and those provided to them by colleges of education. As teacher preparation programs continue to cater to historic models of diversity, the programs show a glaring lack of recognition for the recent changes in school and community populations.Internationalizing Teacher Education in the United Statesexamines the impact of globalization on teacher education in the United States, explains the current barriers to teacher education becoming more internationally minded, and presents possible solutions for teacher education programs to consider. Other books address the multi-national challenges faced by American education in the 21st century, but this book takes it one step further, offering teacher educators practical and theoretical explorations of their vital role in the education of contemporary student populations in the United States.

Due to the rise of internet use and a move toward globalization, it may be assumed that white millennial college students are more accepting of cultural diversity and are more likely to be advocates for social justice than generations that have come before them. This project shows that while many white students know how to speak the language of'correctness'and to some degree even believe in what they are saying, their limited personal experiences with those who are racially different from themselves often bump against their beliefs about racial acceptance and equality. This project investigates the ways that one facet of identity, whiteness, influences teachers'understanding of their roles in the schools and informs their decision making within their practice. It explores several life stories of five teacher candidates, all born after 1985. Through these stories we get a sense of how white prospective teachers imagine themselves as teachers of diverse students and how they imagine developing equitable practices. This work advocates that teacher educators help pre-service teachers unpack and understand their biases in order to facilitate their students in balancing their life experiences with whom they imagine themselves to be as teachers.

Educating for Diversity and Social Justice foregrounds the personal stories of educators who are engaging the space of schooling as a site of possibility for realizing the goals of social justice. It is a book inspired by a vision of education as a practice of freedom where young people – especially those who are marginalized – can learn that they have a voice and the power to change their world for the better. Drawing on the work of US philosopher Nancy Fraser, the book examines issues of justice and schooling in relation to three dimensions: political, cultural and economic. While its focus is on research within three Australian case study schools, the book provides an international perspective of these dimensions of justice in western education contexts as they impact on the schooling performance of marginalized students. Towards greater equity for these students, the book presents a comprehensive scaffold for thinking about and addressing issues of schooling, diversity and social justice. Through practical examples from the case study research, the book illustrates the complexities and possibilities associated with schools providing inclusive environments where marginalized voices are heard (political justice), where marginalized culture is recognized and valued (cultural justice) and where marginalized students are supported to achieve academically towards accessing the material benefits of society (economic justice).

This book is about the transition from teacher preparation to teaching practice in urban school settings. It provides a clear presentation of the challenges, resources, and opportunities for learning to teach in urban schools; examples of the experiences, perceptions, and practices of teachers who are effective in urban schools and those who are not; a detailed account of the journey of a team of teachers who transformed their practice to improve learning in a low performing urban school; an approach that can be used by novice teachers in joining a teacher community and making the transition from preparation to practice; and perspective on leadership that can be used to create a context for transforming teacher professional development in an urban school district. Learning to Teach in Urban Schools offers rare insight into how teachers can transform their own practice and in the process, transform the culture of low performing urban schools.

In Minority Students in East Asia: Government Policies, School Practices and Teacher Responses authors discuss their research on minority students'schooling (elementary to higher education) in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Minority students'educational issues are often neglected in literature and in practice; social and educational conditions that have resulted from globalization – in particular issues pertaining to minority groups'education, language and other human rights – receive little attention. In addition, many areas of East Asia have viewed themselves as single-ethnicity countries and have not articulated strong agendas around minority rights. The purpose of this book is to highlight key educational issues for specific minority populations in East Asia. Themes addressed include government policies related to minorities; equity issues in the education of minorities; school practices and teacher perspectives on minorities; identity construction in terms of language and culture; national versus ethnic identity; teacher education issues; and parental concerns. The authors also discuss new theoretical orientations to understanding minority educational issues. A particular strength of this book is the use of multicultural education theories to both articulate concerns related to the education of minority students and to provide solutions to these concerns.

The Culturally Responsive Instruction Observation Protocol (CRIOP) is a framework for implementing culturally relevant literacy instruction and classroom observation. Drawing on research and theory reflecting a range of perspectives ─ multicultural instruction, literacy theory, equity pedagogy, language and discourse models, sheltered instruction, critical pedagogy ─ it provides a means for assessing the many variables of classroom literacy instruction and for guiding practitioners in their development as multicultural educators. Literacy for All Students Discusses issues in multicultural literacy instruction within the context of various essential instructional components (such as assessment, curriculum, parent collaboration) Provides a protocol for observing features of literacy instruction for culturally and linguistically diverse students Presents vignettes from real classrooms, written by elementary and middle school teachers, showing their victories and struggles as they attempt to implement a pedagogy that is culturally responsive within a climate of high stakes testing A highly effective instrument for assessing culturally responsive literacy instruction in schools, the CRIOP serves as a model for realizing a literacy that is both relevant and transformative.

Takes a critical look at present approaches to international education, focusing on the intercultural potential that it offers but mostly fails to deliver. The underlying premise of this profound, engaging book is that international education can be a transforming intercultural experience for hosts as well as visitors.

Doing Multicultural Education for Achievement and Equity, a hands-on, reader-friendly multicultural education textbook, actively engages education students in critical reflection and self-examination as they prepare to teach in increasingly diverse classrooms. In this engaging text, Carl A. Grant and Christine E. Sleeter, two of the most eminent scholars of multicultural teacher education, help pre-service teachers develop the tools they will need to learn about their students and their students'communities and contexts, about themselves, and about the social relations in which schools are embedded. Doing Multicultural Education for Achievement and Equity challenges readers to take a truly active and ongoing role in promoting equity within education and helps to guide them in becoming highly qualified and fantastic teachers. Features and updates to this much-anticipated second edition include: Reflection boxes that encourage students to actively engage with the text and concepts, along with downloadable templates available on Routledge.com'Putting It into Practice'activities that offer concrete suggestions for really'doing'multicultural work in the classroom Fictional vignettes that illustrate the real issues teacher education students face and the ways their own cultural attitudes can impact their response New coverage of issues pertaining to student achievement, federal and state policy, and socioeconomic connections between the current economy and educational funding A more comprehensive discussion about the different social movements that have affected education in the past and present

Destined to become a life saver for international students everywhere, this book provides clear, comprehensive guidance for students embarking on postgraduate study at a western university. Helping to maximise your chances of academic success, topics include challenges such as critical thinking, research, writing and speaking skills.