The Global Search for Education: The Top 10
"The Global Search for Education series takes important issues related to global education and gives them context." -- Adam Steiner
Diane Ravitch, Howard Gardner, Sir Ken Robinson, Pak Tee Ng, Pasi Sahlberg, Tony Wagner, Yong Zhao, Krista Kiuru, Peter Vesterbacka, Randi Weingarten, Jonathan Jansen, Michael Fullan and Andy Hargreaves, among others, have been chosen for our first Global Search for Education Top 10 List.
We asked Adam Steiner, a technology integration specialist for the Holliston Public Schools in Holliston, Massachusetts and a doctoral researcher at Boston College, to make an assessment of the over 250 interviews we've published and give us his view of our top ten articles.
Adam is the co-author with Elizabeth Stringer Keefe of a forthcoming book on Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and technology (scheduled release date of March 2015 from Rowman & Littlefield). He joins me to discuss the Top 10 in today's edition of The Global Search for Education.
Adam is the co-author with Elizabeth Stringer Keefe of a forthcoming book on Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and technology (scheduled release date of March 2015 from Rowman & Littlefield). He joins me to discuss the Top 10 in today's edition of The Global Search for Education.
Adam, I like your first selection - my 2012 interview with Diane Ravitch. How have The Global Search for Education articles helped you as an educator?
The Global Search for Education series takes important issues related to global education and gives them context. Given the various threads of my personal and professional life, the interviews have helped to put it all in a broader context and give it a larger meaning.
As a teacher, your 2012 interview with Diane Ravitch, in particular, represents the need for teaching to remain a respected profession. I know that my first few years of teaching were such a challenge and would have been impossible if I felt the community did not respect my work. Diane Ravitch rightly argues that a well-respected teaching profession requires higher expectations for teachers and stricter requirements for entry into the profession.
"Diane Ravitch rightly argues that a well-respected teaching profession requires higher expectations for teachers and stricter requirements for entry into the profession." -- Adam Steiner
Can I assume that the articles you selected as Nos. 2 and 3 on your list are related to your experience as a technology integration specialist?
Absolutely. Over the past five years, my professional focus has shifted from classroom teacher to technology integration specialist. My particular focus has been on the use of assistive technology in partnership with the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework to support inclusive classrooms. Singapore is an amazing example of a country that is using technology to help transform its educational system and there is no better person to speak to this than Pak Tee Ng, Professor at the University of Singapore - the best known expert on the Singaporean education system. He emphasizes that Singapore is seeking out uses of technology that transform teaching and not just prop up traditional modes. Tony Wagner continues this theme in my third choice when he talks about technology as a source of pedagogical transformation. In your interview, Tony talks about visiting a school system that had invested tens of thousands in interactive whiteboards in classrooms. Despite the innovative technology, the teaching had not changed - the devices were simply being used as sophisticated test prep tools. As a technology integration specialist, I find myself promoting and supporting the purchase of classroom technology. However, I am also constantly checking to insure that my work is promoting innovative teaching and not just equipment.
I was pleased that my interview with Yong Zhao made no. 4 on your list. As an education researcher, what interested you most about this article?
China is on a continual journey of self-examination of its own schools. There is no better guide in this irony than Yong Zhao, University of Oregon Professor and expert on the Chinese educational system. Dr. Zhao emphasized efforts to lessen the gap between wealthy and poor, powerful and powerless, a topic that has huge implications for the United States and our disturbing inequality. He described a pernicious selection of students into a hierarchical arrangement of schools and a need for a broad cultural shift that would measure the value of a school intrinsically rather than in comparison to other schools. The growing emphasis on large-scale standardized testing in the US would seem to run contrary to this effort.
"Jonathan Jansen's South African experience has powerful ramifications for any country looking to make significant reform. He emphasizes the importance of approaching reform with an eye toward systemic change rather than tackling issues in a piecemeal fashion." -- Adam Steiner
No. 5 on your list - a look at Finland's education system for inspiration in the Global Search series.
I had the privilege to hear Dr. Pasi Sahlberg speak at Boston College and this The Global Search for Education: The Top 10 | C. M. Rubin: