Education books

Although credit is a well-established feature of the higher education sector in the USA, it is a relatively recent and radical phenomenon in the UK. Credit is a vehicle for widening access and student choice, for curricular flexibility and mobility of learning. Credit provides a transparent, enabling framework within which students can be supported and sustained through their learning journey. Yet much of the conservative 'university establishment' in the UK university sector has been hostile to the credit project, hence credit in the UK is both championed and condemned, celebrated and feared, embedded and rejected in different settings. This book provides an introductory overview of credit, chronological chapters which trace the narrative of the history of credit in the UK higher education (decade by decade) from the ground-breaking Robbins Report of 1963 to the present day and a commentary on the developments of the past half-century. Everyone involved, or with an interest, in Higher Education should read this book, including educators (curriculum developers, tutors, assessors) and administrators, institutional leaders and student advisors. Debates about the focus, funding and future of the UK university sector is at the forefront of political and educational discourse; this book could not be more timely. Furthermore, there are no comparable books in the market. This is the first history of credit in the UK HE sector.

The Institutional Research profession is currently experimenting with many strategies to assess institutional effectiveness in a manner that reflects the letter and spirit of their unique mission, vision, and values. While a "best-practices" approach to the measurement and assessment of institutional functions is prevalent in the literature, a machine learning approach that synthesizes these parts into a coherent and synergistic approach has not emerged.  A Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence Approach to Institutional Effectiveness in Higher Education presents a practical, effective, and systematic approach to the measurement, assessment, and sensemaking of institutional performance. Included are instruments and strategies to measure and assess the performance of Curriculum, Learning, Instruction, Support Services, and Program Feasibility as well as a meaningful Environmental Scanning method. The data collected in this system are organized into assessments of institutional effectiveness through the application of machine learning data processes that create an artificial intelligence model of actual institutional performance from the raw performance data. This artificial intelligence is visualized through five organizational sensemaking approaches to monitor, demonstrate, and improve institutional performance. Thus, this book provides a set of tools that can be adopted or adapted to the specific intentions of any institution, making it an invaluable resource for Higher Education administrators, leaders and practitioners.

Current conventions in school evaluation focus on accountability, control and compliance. New Zealand offers a distinctive, systemic alternative to school self-evaluation, with developmental and negotiated approaches ingrained throughout the education system, from school inspection to major government schooling improvement initiatives. In New Zealand there is no national testing, other than a Ministry-sponsored (voluntary) formative assessment system designed for school and teacher self-evaluation. This is a form of professional and program evaluation where there is shared power and responsibility between evaluators and those being evaluated. Through a detailed national case study of New Zealand, together with commentaries from international specialists, this volume examines the successes and challenges of this approach to programme evaluation and its generalizability to other educational and professional review settings, and show how education systems can recover a balance between an achievement agenda and a focus on educational quality.

Hierarchy within the educational setting is a topic underrepresented in the existing literature, yet an area rich with unique social characteristics and particular challenges. A Sociological Perspective on Hierarchies in Educational Institutions traces hierarchical origins, differentiating between their types and discussing related terms such as positioning, social stratification, and central root vs. rhizomatic structure to offer a comprehensive complex exploration. By presenting the circumstances under which hierarchies flourish or diminish, Einav Argaman provides illustrative examples for the ways in which inter- and intra-institutional hierarchies are constructed and displayed, and points to existing and future directions that hierarchies in educational institutions may take. Offering a step-by-step guide to identifying and changing hierarchical relationships in schools, colleges and universities, A Sociological Perspective on Hierarchies in Educational Institutions bridges the gap between theory and practice. Drawing together research from different perspectives without losing comprehensiveness, accuracy, and in-depth coverage of hierarchy and educational institutions, this work is a novel contribution to Organizational Studies. The interdisciplinary scope of Argaman’s study spans across multiple academic fields, including education, sociology, organization studies, management, curriculum studies, linguistics, and architecture. It is an accessibly written resource for researchers, academics, and teaching.

Framed in the context of a world in which academic freedom is often jeopardized, or criticized by outside social forces, Academic Freedom: Autonomy, Challenges and Conformation sets out to echo the voices of faculty who have encountered challenges to academic freedom within their personal and professional careers.  Including chapters which range from showcasing specific experiences within particular disciplines, to providing broad historical or philosophical perspectives, this edited collection provides an authentic account of how academic freedom has helped and hindered the academic profession, scholarship, and teaching. Revealing one-on-one interactions which shed light on the views of individual educators, this book shifts focus onto the day-to-day ramifications of limited academic freedom. Faculty members recollect occasions where they have experienced a challenge to their ability to exchange ideas and concepts freely in the classroom, to explore and disseminate new knowledge, and to speak professionally and privately on topics in their field of expertise without being under duress.  Offering up a finely curated collection of chapters, editors Ceglie and Thompson allow readers to understand the dynamic between academic freedom and professional responsibilities, and also open up an opportunity to discuss challenges to academic freedom and the potential loss of autonomy in higher education in the United States and beyond.

Academic mobility promotes the development of joint research activities, broadens the horizons of researchers, lecturers and professors, and promotes knowledge flows between institutions. This book offers a contemporary perspective on the mobility of academics across the globe with contributions by authors based in Australia, Germany, Ireland, Israel, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States. With a focus on the context for and experience of academic mobility in Africa, Australia, Europe, the Gulf and the United States, issues such as historical perspectives and contemporary reflections, the impact of English as the 'lingua franca' of academe in South Africa, the motivations and experiences of international academics working in the United Arab Emirates, the integration of foreign-born faculty within Israeli academia, academic mobility within the US, and, the legal status of academic mobility, this volume is both comprehensive and relevant.

The COVID-19 pandemic undoubtedly tested the resilience of academics in higher education. Many universities were severely affected by reduced student enrolment, with widespread job losses reported across universities. For many academics, the impact of the pandemic has been worrying, financially crippling and overwhelming. The virus has also exposed academic inequalities and impacted heavily on vulnerable people. The individual and collective heroic spirit of many academics has been nothing short of extraordinary. Overcoming the initial hurdles of COVID-19 takes one kind of energy; the resilience needed to remain engaged despite the continuing changes and uncertainties is quite another challenge. It is one that demands sustained resilience. This timely book provides perspectives across disciplines, career stages and global contexts on how to develop resilience in academia. These personal stories may empower others not only to survive, but to thrive in times of adversity.

Research indicates change is complex and difficult, and requires considerable time to achieve, sometimes years or even decades. This book presents major findings from a research study exploring the leadership needed to enact rapid change – defined as three years or less – in various school contexts, overtly including the perspectives of leaders, teachers, students, parents, community members, and district leaders. We challenge many of the assumptions in current scholarly literature about how fast, complex change can or should be wrought within educational environments; indeed, our premise is that rapid, complex change is not only possible but may be highly desirable and successful given the right leadership approach. We present a pragmatic ‘rapid change’ model emerging from in-depth explorations of successful leadership approaches that accelerated the change agenda in these schools. We outline the theoretical underpinnings to the model and overtly articulate the pragmatic approaches leaders found to be effective in implementing fast-paced change. We also present case studies of successful change in schools with descriptions and advice elicited from leaders and stakeholders.

This edited collection illuminates the benefits, drawbacks, challenges, opportunities of the push to widen access to success and social mobility through university and other post-secondary education experiences in the UK and internationally. It examines a range of particular case studies, and addresses issues including the role of part-time study, the experiences of BAME students, increasing access within rural communities, issues faced by those with mental health problems, and the role of employers. There has been some progress in some countries; increased access and enhanced success for some targeted populations, but not for others; and improvements in some regions of particular countries, but not for others. Efforts to improve access to success and social mobility, to strengthen the identification and nurturing of talent in every community and every corner of our societies, is, like the ‘curate’s egg’, only good in parts. This collection demonstrates that educational inequalities, unfairness and injustices still remain.

Academic promotion doesn't come easy: a successful application requires you to demonstrate continued growth in every area of your role as a researcher, educator and member of the academic community. Furthermore, the detail of the promotions process varies from one country to another and even from one institution to another. So where does an ambitious academic start?   Achieving Academic Promotion demystifies the process by bringing together international perspectives - both personal accounts and reflections on the structures and processes of promotion in different contexts - to help you understand the steps you can take at any stage of your career to move up the ladder. Featuring compelling and encouraging personal stories of success, as well as practical tips and takeaways, this timely book is essential reading for the academic who wants to be promotion-ready.