Alternative American Schools

Alternative American Schools PDF Author: Claire V. Korn
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791404713
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Alternative American Schools: Ideals in Action is a book for parents and teachers, for education professors, researchers, and students--indeed, for everyone who wants to understand the daily practices and philosophies of schools where awakening interests and learning how to learn is more important than content mastery. Drawing upon years of research and personal experiences, Korn clearly discusses fundamental contemporary educational issues through an analysis of seven long-lived, open, alternative schools, preschool through high school, public and private. This clearly written book explores the cooperative (and sometimes confusing) roles of teachers, students, and parents in these schools of choice; it also discusses their philosophical, financial, and physical survival needs. Once popularly dismissed as failed dreams, today these open learning environments continue to flourish and provide educational options to many enthusiastic learners.

The Science of Play

The Science of Play PDF Author: Susan G. Solomon
Publisher: University Press of New England
ISBN: 1611686113
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
Poor design and wasted funding characterize today's American playgrounds. A range of factors--including a litigious culture, overzealous safety guidelines, and an ethos of risk aversion--have created uniform and unimaginative playgrounds. These spaces fail to nurture the development of children or promote playgrounds as an active component in enlivening community space. Solomon's book demonstrates how to alter the status quo by allying data with design. Recent information from the behavioral sciences indicates that kids need to take risks; experience failure but also have a chance to succeed and master difficult tasks; learn to plan and solve problems; exercise self-control; and develop friendships. Solomon illustrates how architects and landscape architects (most of whom work in Europe and Japan) have already addressed these needs with strong, successful playground designs. These innovative spaces, many of which are more multifunctional and cost effective than traditional playgrounds, are both sustainable and welcoming. Having become vibrant hubs within their neighborhoods, these play sites are models for anyone designing or commissioning an urban area for children and their families. The Science of Play, a clarion call to use playground design to deepen the American commitment to public space, will interest architects, landscape architects, urban policy makers, city managers, local politicians, and parents.

Geographies of Alternative Education

Geographies of Alternative Education PDF Author: Kraftl, Peter
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 1447320514
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
This book offers a comparative analysis of alternative education in the UK, focusing on learning spaces that cater for children and young people. It constitutes one of the first book-length explorations of alternative learning spaces outside mainstream education - including Steiner, human scale and forest schools, care farms and homeschooling.Based on original research with teachers, parents and young people at over 50 learning spaces, Geographies of alternative education demonstrates the importance of a geographical lens for understanding alternative education. In so doing, it develops contemporary theories of autonomy, emotion/affect, habit, intergenerational relations and life-itself. The book will appeal to academics and postgraduates in the fields of geography, sociology, education and youth studies. Given ongoing concerns about the state's role in providing children's education, and an increase in the number of alternative education providers in the UK and elsewhere, the book also highlights several critical questions for policy makers and practitioners.

Innovating to Learn, Learning to Innovate

Innovating to Learn, Learning to Innovate PDF Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
ISBN: 9264047980
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
This book summarises and discusses key findings from the learning sciences, shedding light on the cognitive and social processes that can be used to redesign classrooms to make them highly effective learning environments.

Helping Students Graduate

Helping Students Graduate PDF Author: Franklin Schargel
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317925823
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
This book describes the fifteen strategies identified through research reviewed by The National Dropout Prevention Center and Network at Clemson University. Each chapter in this book was written by a nationally recognized authority in that field. Research has shown that these 15 strategies have been successfully implemented in all school levels from K - 12 in rural, suburban, and urban centers; as stand-alone programs or as part of systemic school improvement plans. Helping Students Graduate: A Strategic Approach to Dropout Prevention also covers No Child Left Behind and its effects on dropout rates; Dealing with Hispanic dropouts; Differences and similarities between rural and urban dropouts. These fifteen strategies have been adopted by the U.S. Department of Education. They are applicable to all students, including students with disabilities.

Evaluating Learning Environments

Evaluating Learning Environments PDF Author: Wesley Imms
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9463005374
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
The recent trend in innovative school design has provided exciting places to both learn and teach. New generation learning environments have encouraged educators to unleash responsive pedagogies previously hindered by traditional classrooms, and has allowed students to engage in a variety of learning experiences well beyond the traditional ‘chalk and talk’ common in many schools. These spaces have made cross-disciplinary instruction, collaborative learning, individualised curriculum, ubiquitous technologies, and specialised equipment more accessible than ever before. The quality of occupation of such spaces has also been encouraging. Many learning spaces now resemble places of collegiality, intellectual intrigue and comfort, as opposed to the restrictive and monotonous classrooms many of us experienced in years past. These successes, however, have generated a very real problem. Do these new generation learning environments actually work – and if so, in what ways? Are they leading to the sorts of improved experiences and learning outcomes for students they promise? This book describes strategies for assessing what is actually working. Drawing on the best thinking from our best minds – doctoral students tackling the challenge of isolating space as a variable within the phenomenon of contemporary schooling – Evaluating Learning Environments draws together thirteen approaches to learning environment evaluation that capture the latest thinking in terms of emerging issues, methods and knowledge.

Constructivist Learning Environments

Constructivist Learning Environments PDF Author: Brent Gayle Wilson
Publisher: Educational Technology
ISBN: 9780877782902
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description


From the Campfire to the Holodeck

From the Campfire to the Holodeck PDF Author: David Thornburg
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118633938
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 165

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Book Description
How to optimize educational spaces and teaching practices for more effective learning Author David Thornburg, an award-winning futurist and educational consultant, maintains that in order to engage all students, learning institutions should offer a balance of Campfire spaces (home of the lecture), Watering Holes (home to conversations between peers), Caves (places for quiet reflection), and Life (places where students can apply what they've learned). In order to effectively use technology in the classroom, prepare students for future careers, and incorporate project-based learning, all teachers should be moving from acting as the "sage on the stage" to becoming the "guide on the side." Whether you are a school administrator interested in redesigning your school or a teacher who wants to prepare better lessons, From the Campfire to the Holodeck can help by providing insight on how to: Boost student engagement Enable project-based learning Incorporate technology into the classroom Encourage student-led learning From the Campfire to the Holodeck is designed to help schools move from traditional lecture halls (Campfires) where students just receive information to schools that encourage immersive student-centered learning experiences (Holodecks).

Virtual Learning Environments: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools and Applications

Virtual Learning Environments: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools and Applications PDF Author: Management Association, Information Resources
Publisher: IGI Global
ISBN: 1466600128
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 1831

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Book Description
As the world rapidly moves online, sectors from management, industry, government, and education have broadly begun to virtualize the way people interact and learn. Virtual Learning Environments: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools and Applications is a three-volume compendium of the latest research, case studies, theories, and methodologies within the field of virtual learning environments. As networks get faster, cheaper, safer, and more reliable, their applications grow at a rate that makes it difficult for the typical practitioner to keep abreast. With a wide range of subjects, spanning from authors across the globe and with applications at different levels of education and higher learning, this reference guide serves academics and practitioners alike, indexed and categorized easily for study and application.

How People Learn

How People Learn PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309131979
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
First released in the Spring of 1999, How People Learn has been expanded to show how the theories and insights from the original book can translate into actions and practice, now making a real connection between classroom activities and learning behavior. This edition includes far-reaching suggestions for research that could increase the impact that classroom teaching has on actual learning. Like the original edition, this book offers exciting new research about the mind and the brain that provides answers to a number of compelling questions. When do infants begin to learn? How do experts learn and how is this different from non-experts? What can teachers and schools do-with curricula, classroom settings, and teaching methodsâ€"to help children learn most effectively? New evidence from many branches of science has significantly added to our understanding of what it means to know, from the neural processes that occur during learning to the influence of culture on what people see and absorb. How People Learn examines these findings and their implications for what we teach, how we teach it, and how we assess what our children learn. The book uses exemplary teaching to illustrate how approaches based on what we now know result in in-depth learning. This new knowledge calls into question concepts and practices firmly entrenched in our current education system. Topics include: How learning actually changes the physical structure of the brain. How existing knowledge affects what people notice and how they learn. What the thought processes of experts tell us about how to teach. The amazing learning potential of infants. The relationship of classroom learning and everyday settings of community and workplace. Learning needs and opportunities for teachers. A realistic look at the role of technology in education.