Background: Service-learning as a pedagogy and curricular consideration to revitalize undergraduate education has been flourishing in the Asia-Pacific Region for years. The W. T. Chan Fellowship Program is designed as an intercultural service-learning program, with the fellows coming from China and Hong Kong, to experience service-learning in the…

Background: Under the impact of globalization and the coming of the Information Age, there is a paradigm shift occurring in the engineering curriculum and academic structure. Apart from the creation of new programs for the emerging fields in engineering, the approach and orientation have also been shifted from objective-based/input-based education…

Background: Despite years of intense criticism of contrastive (intercultural) rhetoric, theoretical debate, and controversy, there has been a recent resurgence in the number of high quality pedagogical studies concerning the teaching of intercultural rhetoric in university writing classes for East-Asian (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) writers.…

Background: Given rising expectations for higher education institutions to rely more on private sources of funding, there is a search for viable models and directions that promise success. But the models used by successful institutions are often unique and not applicable to institutions needing guidance. Aims or focus of discussion: The aim of…

Background: The literature suggests two main types of orientations influencing teachers' choice of assessment strategies--"Knowledge acquisition and retention (K orientation)" and "Understanding and Conceptual change (U orientation)" with the former more directly related to surface learning types of assessment strategies and the latter more to do…

Background: The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's (UWM) Urban Teacher World Pre-College Academy works with American high school students to explore what it means to be an educator in the urban context. High school students from underrepresented groups reside at the UWM campus to work with university faculty, staff and students to explore careers…

Background: Collaborative action research provides teachers with the framework and methodology to reflect upon their work and take action with regard to specific concerns and situations in their classrooms. Within this approach, internal evaluation could be a useful tool to help teachers develop critical thinking about their work by locating areas…

Background: The percentage of male teachers in preschools in Taiwan is very low, and thus they have become the disadvantaged minority in preschool teacher training classrooms. Consequently, it is worth investigating the experience of such individuals, and whether the training they receive is both appropriate and adequate. Specifically, should they…

Background: Students' academic self-concepts are known to be domain specific. Researchers have also identified two related components of self-concept:cognitive (how competent students feel about a subject domain) and affective (their interest in the subject). This paper examines whether both components are domain specific. Research has also shown…

Background: Efficient and effective performance on any job depend largely on good psychological well being of the workers as well as other factors such as conducive environment, good interpersonal relationship, adequate communication among staff and between staff and management, work load, remuneration and other physical and psychological boosting…

Background: Under the challenge of many post-modern theories and critics on art and art history, the boundaries and definition of art has becoming more diverse. Conventional art appreciation no longer covers all the debates and issues arising from the complex meaning of art in the modern world. Art education today must widen students' vision of…

Background: Scholars and education reformers alike have re-ignited the importance of teaching science in the elementary grades of the public schools of America by disputing the traditional belief that K-4 learners are too young to learn and function within the nature of science learning and experimentation. The consideration rests on the findings…

Background: Master teachers in Singapore have been recognised on the basis of their invaluable contribution in their field of teaching, and are deemed to be at the pinnacle of their career. A national programme for incumbent and potential master teachers, Advanced Senior Teachers Programme (ASTP), was inaugurated in 2005. Conducted by the National…

Background: Media education is the study of the media with the aim of cultivating people's media literacy. In the past four decades, media education has rapidly developed in school systems and communities all over the world. Each country has its own developmental trajectory. With the rise of the interactive new media, media education is going to…

Background: Media culture touches most aspects of the lives of children growing up today, beginning at the earliest ages. It is profoundly the lessons children learn as well as how they learn, thereby contributing to what this article characterizes as "remote control childhood." Educators need to understand remote control childhood so they can…