How To Educate All For Excellence

The author gives us a vision of educational reform that transcends standards, curriculum, and instructional strategies. He argues for a paradigm shift-a schoolwide embrace of an "ethic of excellence" and with a passion for quality describes what's possible when teachers, students, and parents commit to nothing less than the best. The author tells exactly how this can be done, from the blackboard to the blacktop to the school boardroom.

Inspiring and uplifting, Educating All for Excellence is a new and a better way of understanding education as the following: *A socializing process *An awakening process *A liberating process Do you truly want all the adolescents and young adults in your community and schools to learn more actively, more meaningfully, and more mindfully? If yes is your answer to this question, then Educating All for Excellence is for you. Educating All for Excellence is especially designed to help adolescents and young adults to strive to do the following: *Be more open and receptive to their two learning worlds *Strive for the knowledge and skills congruent to their innate talent *Awaken the positive side of the sleeping giant within everyone *Realign their learning to their calling *Identify what they want the most out of their life *Be focus on what they are the most good at *Match what they have to do to what they are called to do *Sing out loud their lifelong most favorite love song for the whole world to hear *Be the blessings to one another they are meant to be *Be more peaceful culture consumers *Be more mindful culture producers

By the early twenty-first century, a startling consensus had emerged about the overall aim of American school reform. In an era of political discord, and in a field historically known for contentiousness, the notion of promoting educational excellence for all students was a distinct point of bipartisan agreement. Shaped by a corps of entrepreneurial reformers intent on finding "what works" and taking it to scale, this hybrid vision won over the nation's most ambitious and well-resourced policy leaders at foundations and nonprofits, in state and federal government, and in urban school districts from coast to coast. "Excellence for all" might, at first glance, appear to be nothing more than a rhetorical flourish. Who, after all, would oppose the idea of a great education for every student? Yet it is hardly a throwaway phrase. Rather, it represents a surprising fusion of educational policy approaches that had been in tense opposition throughout the twentieth century--those on the right favoring social efficiency, and those on the left supporting social justice. This book seeks to understand why the "excellence for all" vision took hold at the time it did, unpacks the particular beliefs and assumptions embedded in it, and details the often informal coalition building that produced this period of consensus. Examining the nation's largest urban school districts (Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York), the author details three major reform efforts in chapters titled "The Right Space: The Small Schools Movement"; "The Right Teachers: Teach for America"; and "The Right Curriculum: Expanding Advanced Placement."

Packed with advice, vignettes and case studies, as well as useful tips and checklists for improving teaching, the second edition of Developing Your Teaching is the ideal toolkit to support the development of teaching practice. Providing a blend of ideas, interactive review points and case study examples from university teachers, this accessible handbook for professional practice provides ideas on a range of topics including: learning from student feedback and peer review students as consumers and their expectations building effective partnerships with students and colleagues developing a teaching portfolio choosing effective teaching practices the challenges and benefits of securing an initial teacher qualification A must-read for all those new to teaching in higher education, as well as more experienced lecturers looking to refresh and advance the quality of their teaching, this fully updated new edition is the ideal toolkit to support the development of teaching practice.

Although specific definitions may change over time, few goals are considered more important to education than the pursuit of academic excellence. There are many different viewpoints on this issue today among educational psychologists and other social scientists. One particularly glaring fault line in the debate divides those who emphasize developing individual learning and those who focus on promoting cultural and institutional reform. These two perspectives are rarely addressed in a single volume. In this book, well-known theorists and researchers present a range of perspectives on how to promote excellence in education. This allows those who stress transformation of educational practice and those who emphasize individual abilities to speak to each, and invites readers to jointly consider the arguments for both positions, or for some synthesis of the two. The point is to consider how these two divergent viewpoints can be reconciled, or simply coordinated, in an effort to benefit both students and society at large. The main thesis is that excellence can be fostered without sacrificing equity, both of which are fundamental tenets of a democratic education. The issues addressed in this book have implications and relevance for school reform efforts and across the fields of educational psychology, curriculum and instruction, philosophy of education, and educational leadership. The volume provides a unique source for students and teachers in various disciplines who want to gain a broader and more integrated view of the nature and development of excellence through education.

Throughout the world, equity and excellence in education is a major issue of concern. International comparative studies such as those carried out by OECD (PISA) have launched a worldwide debate on the effectiveness of educational systems (macro level), schools (meso level) and teachers (micro level) in terms of enhancing equity and excellence. Inspired by the OECD research and spurred by national policy-making, quantitative and qualitative research studies have recently been conducted in different parts of the globe aiming to provide deeper insight into the crucial variables that have an impact on equity, excellence or both. Among the variables that have been identified as crucial in this respect are the pupils' gender and their socio-economic and linguistic background, teachers' expectations, cognitions and pedagogical approach in the classroom, parental support, financial aspects, educational policies (e.g. priority policies, multilingual policies, early start policies), and variables related to the structure of the educational structure and system (e.g. compulsory school age, comprehensive systems, support structures, system variables enhancing spread of learners). This volume aims to compile a rich collection of research-based contributions, providing a state-of-the-art resource on what we know about this topic today.

THE COLFAXES DIDN'T START TEACHING THEIR BOYS AT HOME TO GET THEM INTO HARVARD - BUT THAT'S WHAT HOMESCHOOLING ACCOMPLISHED! For over fifteen years, David and Micki Colfax educated their children at home. They don't think of themselves as pioneers, though that's what they became. Unhappy with the public schools, the Colfaxes wanted the best education possible for their four sons: a program for learning that met the evolving needs of each child and gave them complete control of how and what their children learned. The results? A prescription for excellence-Harvard educations for their sons Grant, Drew, and Reed. (Their fourth son is still too young for college.) Now the Colfaxes tell how all parents can become involved in homeschooling. In a straight-talking book that reads like a frank conversation among friends, they tell what they did and how they did it: their educational approaches, the lessons they learned, and what materials-books, equipment, educational aids-proved most useful over the years. Best of all, they show you how you can take charge of your children's education-in an invaluable sourcebook that will help you find a rewarding and successful alternative to our failing schools.

Teaching excellence in higher education needs to be promoted and celebrated. However, a universal definition of excellent teaching remains elusive, and robust evidence about how it affects student learning appears to be lacking. This timely book explores the notion of teaching excellence from the viewpoint of a variety of international authors; guiding the reader to understand the complex terrain in which teaching excellence is foregrounded, and highlighting a number of key issues facing the future of global higher education. Global Perspectives on Teaching Excellence explores: what is meant by teaching excellence, whether it can be measured and if so, how? the impact of teaching excellence frameworks, initiatives and awards. the new challenges for delivering global teaching excellence fit for the 21st century. With a mix of political, theoretical and applied research foci, each chapter also includes a short critical commentary from international experts in the field to further the debate and situate the topics in a wider context. Global Perspectives on Teaching Excellence is essential reading for academic and education policymakers, researchers, and undergraduate and postgraduate students in education.