Enhancing the Academic Prestige of Nonprofit Studies: Can impact case studies help?

This paper describes the evolution of an evidence-based management-research case study in the UK and has the potential to enhance the profile and status of nonprofit studies in the UK and beyond. Until recently the UK’s process to evaluate the research quality of Universities relied on journal quality lists to guide their ratings. However, in recent years, these have been revised to add impact case studies. In response the authors developed a methodology and template for writing impact case studies for the nonprofit sector. The first case study using the new template was produced at the end of 2016, which described an evaluation framework for the Prince of Wales Charitable Foundation ‘Place’ programme in the U.K. This complex regeneration project involved private, public and voluntary sectors and demonstrated the efficacy of the multi-dimensional collaborative approach taken to help communities regenerate after economic decline

Leadership for Learning Improvement in Urban Schools

Examines urban school leaders' efforts to improve the quality of teaching and learning by supporting progress for diverse students, sharing leadership work, and aligning resources. Analyzes school environments and coordination of various leadership roles

ICT and adult literacy, numeracy and ESOL

Mellar, H., Kambouri, M., Sanderson, M., and Pavlou, V. (2004) ICT and adult literacy, numeracy and ESOL. London: NRDC. Available at: http://www.nrdc.org.uk/uploads/documents/doc_258.pdfResearch report for NRDCThis project set out to obtain a picture of present teaching practice in the use of ICT in adult literacy, numeracy and ESOL within formal provision. (http://www.nrdc.org.uk/uploads/documents/doc_258.pdf

The impact of technology: value-added classroom practice: final report

This report extends Becta’s enquiries into the ways in which digital technologies are supporting learning. It looks in detail at the learning practices mediated by ICT in nine secondary schools in which ICT for learning is well embedded. The project proposes a broader perspective on the notion of ‘impact’ that is rather different from a number of previous studies investigating impact. Previous studies have been limited in that they have either focused on a single innovation or have reported on institutional level factors. However, in both cases this pays insufficient attention to the contexts of learning. In this project, the focus has been on the learning practices of the classroom and the contexts of ICT-supported learning. The study reports an analysis of 85 lesson logs, in which teachers recorded their use of space, digital technology and student outcomes in relation to student engagement and learning. The teachers who filled in the logs, as well as their schools’ senior managers, were interviewed as part of a ‘deep audit’ of ICT provision conducted over two days. One-hour follow-up interviews with the teachers were carried out after the teachers’ log activity. The aim of this was to obtain a broader contextualisation of their teaching

National Security Pedagogy: The Role of Simulations

This article challenges the dominant pedagogical assumptions in the legal academy. It begins by briefly considering the state of the field of national security, noting the rapid expansion in employment and the breadth of related positions that have been created post-9/11. It considers, in the process, how the legal academy has, as an institutional matter, responded to the demand. Part III examines traditional legal pedagogy, grounding the discussion in studies initiated by the American Bar Association, the Carnegie Foundation, and others. It suggests that using the law-writ-large as a starting point for those interested in national security law is a mistake. Instead, it makes more sense to work backwards from the skills most essential in this area of the law. The article then proposes six pedagogical goals that serve to distinguish national security law: (1) understanding the law as applied, (2) dealing with factual chaos and uncertainty, (3) obtaining critical distance—including, inter alia, when not to give legal advice, (4) developing nontraditional written and oral communication skills, (5) exhibiting leadership, integrity, and good judgment in a high-stakes, highly-charged environment, and (6) creating continued opportunities for self-learning. Equally important to the exercise of each of these skills is the ability to integrate them in the course of performance. These goals, and the subsidiary points they cover, are neither conclusive nor exclusive. Many of them incorporate skills that all lawyers should have—such as the ability to handle pressure, knowing how to modulate the mode and content of communications depending upon the circumstances, and managing ego, personality, and subordination. To the extent that they are overlooked by mainstream legal education, however, and present in a unique manner in national security law, they underscore the importance of more careful consideration of the skills required in this particular field. Having proposed a pedagogical approach, the article turns in Part IV to the question of how effective traditional law school teaching is in helping to students reach these goals. Doctrinal and experiential courses both prove important. The problem is that in national security law, the way in which these have become manifest often falls short of accomplishing the six pedagogical aims. Gaps left in doctrinal course are not adequately covered by devices typically adopted in the experiential realm, even as clinics, externships, and moot court competitions are in many ways ill-suited to national security. The article thus proposes in Part V a new model for national security legal education, based on innovations currently underway at Georgetown Law. NSL Sim 2.0 adapts a doctrinal course to the special needs of national security. Course design is preceded by careful regulatory, statutory, and Constitutional analysis, paired with policy considerations. The course takes advantage of new and emerging technologies to immerse students in a multi-day, real-world exercise, which forces students to deal with an information-rich environment, rapidly changing facts, and abbreviated timelines. It points to a new model of legal education that advances students in the pedagogical goals identified above, while complementing, rather than supplanting, the critical intellectual discourse that underlies the value of higher legal education

Circle solutions, a philosophy and pedagogy for learning positive relationships : what promotes and inhibits sustainable outcomes?

Educators are increasingly aware that the efficacy of social and emotional learning (SEL) is dependent on implementation factors, not just program content. These include the philosophy underpinning an intervention, the beliefs as well as the skills of facilitators, and the classroom/whole school context in which the intervention takes place. This article outlines the philosophy and pedagogy of Circle Solutions and presents findings from research where 18 undergraduate students supported and developed ‘Circle Time’ in 8 Greater Western Sydney primary schools for a university module on community service. The study indicates that when there is full teacher participation within the principles of the Circle philosophy, together with active school support that promotes relational values, the learning outcomes for positive relationship building are more sustainable.peer-reviewe

Working to Recover the Essence of Education for the Sake of Teaching and Teacher Education: Towards a Phenomenological Understanding of the Forgotten, Ontological Aspects of Learning

The current definition of a good teacher is grounded in sets of pre-determined competencies established and imposed upon schools by bureaucratic organizations that are, proximally and for the most part, removed from the foundational elements of education, namely, the existential, embodied conscious experience of teaching and learning as it unfolds in the lived world of schools and universities. As Pinar (2004) observes, contemporary American education is deterministic, and in its press for efficiency and standardization,\u27 has the effect of reducing teachers to automata (p. 28). Thus, the subject-hood, or authentic identity, of both teachers and students is not of their own free construction, both run the risk of becoming mechanized and depersonalized because education has lost sight of, or obscured, what it means to be human in the first instance, which is an autonomous Being-in-the-world with others. Teachers are increasingly becoming alienated from the curriculum (educational content and pedagogy), their students, and themselves with dire consequences to the overall view to authentic subject-hood and real education