Approaches to Learning

This book explores how three ideas, results-driven education, systems thinking, and constructivism, are shaping a new direction in staff development in schools. Results-driven education judges the success of schooling by what students actually know and what they can do as a result of their time in school. Systems thinking is a framework for seeing interrelationships rather than things. Constructivism views learners as creators of their own knowledge structures rather than receiving them from others. The book describes how the focus has shifted from the district to the school level, from fragmented efforts to comprehensive plans, from adult needs to student needs, from off-site training to job-embedded training, and from generic skills to a combination that includes content-specific skills. Among chapter topics are: individual development and organizational development, school-focused approaches, student needs and learning opportunities, job-embedded learning, adding content-specific learning to generic approaches, spreading responsibility for staff development, performance improvement, and staff development as central to reform efforts. Extensive examples are used from districts and schools that have implemented the "new" staff development. These are described through first-hand accounts from practicing educators. A networking resource list is appended. (Contains 17 references.) (JLS)

This article addresses the issue of student writing in higher education. It draws on the findings of an Economic and Social Research Council funded project which examined the contrasting expectations and interpretations of academic staff and students regarding undergraduate students' written assignments. It is suggested that the implicit models that have generally been used to understand student writing do not adequately take account of the importance of issues of identity and the institutional relationships of power and authority that surround, and are embedded within, diverse...