Continuous Improvement in Education

In recent years, 'continuous improvement' has become a popular catchphrase in the field of education. However, while continuous improvement has become commonplace and well-documented in other industries, such as healthcare and manufacturing, little is known about how this work has manifested itself in education.This white paper attempts to map the landscape of this terrain by identifying and describing organizations engaged in continuous improvement, and by highlighting commonalities and differences among them. The findings classify three types of organizations engaged in continuous improvement: those focused on instructional improvement at the classroom level; those concentrating on system-wide improvement; and those addressing collective impact. Each type is described in turn and illustrated by an organizational case study. Through the analysis, six common themes that characterize all three types of organizations (e.g., leadership and strategy, communication and engagement, organizational infrastructure, methodology, data collection and analysis, and building capacity) are enumerated. This white paper makes four concluding observations. First, the three case studies provide evidence of organizations conducting continuous improvement work in the field of education, albeit at different levels and in different ways. Second, entry points to continuous improvement work are not mutually exclusive, but are nested and, hence, mutually informative and comparative. Third, continuous improvement is not synonymous with improving all organizational processes simultaneously; rather, research and learning cycles are iterative and gradual in nature. Fourth, despite being both iterative and gradual, it is imperative that improvement work is planned and undertaken in a rigorous, thoughtful, and transparent fashion

Medical education and the 21st century

Medical education at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels has been undergoing continuous changes in the last 40 years. The author why future Maltese doctors should continue with their medical education and have the opportunity to specialize in their fields locally. The duty of the medical profession and the State is to ensure that such a programme is not only instituted but also supported and be actively monitored and audited.peer-reviewe

Steering Capital: Optimizing Financial Support for Innovation in Public Education

Examines efforts to align capital to education innovation and calls for clarity and agreement on problems, goals, and metrics; an effective R&D system; an evidence-based culture of continuous improvement; and transparent, comparable, and useful data

Continuing midwifery education beyond graduation : student midwives' awareness of continuous professional development

Midwifery education plays an important role in educating graduates about engaging in continuous professional development (CPD) but there is a lack of empirical research analysing student midwives’ awareness of CPD beyond graduation. We aimed to explore student midwives’ awareness of the need to become lifelong learners and to map their knowledge of CPD activities available after graduation. Therefore, forty-seven reflective documents, written in the last week of student midwives’ training programme, were analysed in a thematic way. Content analysis confirmed student midwives’ awareness of the importance of CPD before graduation. They mentioned different reasons for future involvement in CPD and described both, formal and informal CPD-activities. Respondents were especially aware of the importance of knowledge, to a lesser degree of skills-training and still less of the potential value of the Internet for individual and collective learning. Respondents perceived a need for a mandatory preceptorship. Supporting learning guides were highly valued and the importance of reflection on CPD was well-established. This could have resulted from an integrated reflective learning strategy during education

The relevance of university adult education for labour market policies

Lifelong learning plays a key role in labor market policies in the EU. In the context of the increasing rate of people with higher education and changes in markets for skilled jobs, universities have begun to engage in adult education and active labor market policies. The article presents the results of studies of unrepresentative cases of university adult education programs conducted in seven European countries with special focus on middle-aged people, who are increasingly vulnerable socially. One of the salient features of the case studies was the social effectiveness of university adult education programs from the point of view of access to jobs and the quality of work / life. The results of the case studies along with analysis of the results of other European projects permitted a continuous training scheme the essential dimensions of universities in adult education for socially effective

Support for the beginning special educator through high quality mentoring

Approximately 50% of school districts across the nation have reported barriers in obtaining highly qualified teachers (U.S. Department of Education, 2009). Beginning special education teachers report that they often feel they lack the prerequisite skills for working with their students, particularly students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Special educators often feel unsupported and overwhelmed by the continuous changes in districts related to No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Additionally, nationwide alternative programs are being developed as a means for special education teachers to clear their credential outside of the university setting. The need for support of these teachers in today\u27s schools is critical. This article highlights best practices for development of high quality mentoring for beginning special education teachers based on meaningful relationships, guidance, and reflective practices

Design, Implementation, and Assessment of an Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Watershed Research Laboratory

This article discusses the establishment of Shippensburg University's Burd Run Interdisciplinary Watershed Research Laboratory and the advantages of linking disciplinary perspectives across courses in geology, geography, biology, and teacher education. The laboratory provides an easily adaptable conceptual model for improving environmental science education at teaching-oriented institutions nationwide. Its success is largely attributable to three factors: the project is student-centered and goal specific; the selected watershed is accessible, diverse, and at a manageable scale; and the Laboratory Advisory Board provides for continuous revision, adaptation, and improvement. Educational levels: Graduate or professional

Analizando los resultados académicos en la Educación Superior en España

The development of the European Higher Education Area has been a process of modernization in many universities. Teaching methodologies have undergone a process of continuous change to meet the demands for high quality leading to a need for enhancement in the learning assessment methodologies as well. The objective of this study is to analyse student´s academic performance measured through coursework vs. final exam and to ascertain the factors that could explain the difference. Regression and variance analysis are carried out over the grades and responses to a questionnaire on a sample of 298 students of different subjects in a Spanish university. The results show that there are differences between continuous assessment and the final examination marks.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad FFI2013-41235-

Accreditation Reconsidered

Higher education is one of the most successful sectors in the nation at a time when much of the economy is struggling. Its quality has been buoyed by a long tradition of investment, both public and private, and by a healthy degree of autonomy from governmental control. America’s three governance innovations, citizen governing boards, shared governance, and accreditation, also have encouraged both quality and institutional autonomy in higher education. Accreditation has been a particularly important contributor to the institutional diversity and vitality of American colleges and universities. Most nations have a ministry of education that oversees institutions of higher education. But, such centralized control too often stifles innovation and quality. By contrast, the United States has long relied on private accreditors that use periodic peer assessments to support continuous quality improvement. Legal accreditation at the moment is out of step with most of higher education accreditation because of arbitrary limits placed on the participation of legal educators by the Council of the ABA Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. It is time for legal education to have a system of accreditation that is grounded on peer assessment, dedicated to improving, and not just assessing, the quality of legal education, and guided by the same peer governance structure that has worked so well for the rest of American higher education