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The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceptions of graduate students about the need for a multicultural education course at doctoral level in a mid-sized higher education public institution in Southwest Florida.

A qualitative case study method was applied with multiple sources of data collected, including semi-structured interviews, observations and students’ written papers, online discussions and assignments that aimed to prepare educators to teach culturally diverse students and challenge their own perceptions about culture, race and other multicultural education-related topics.

The findings indicate that, even though the multicultural education course promoted an eye-opening transformational experience for students through their interactions and learning from each other, the students still need further training in multicultural education because of their limited culturally responsive teaching skills.

Limitations of the study are that both the researchers were deeply involved with the material and the class, as the class professor and one of the students, which might have affected the authors’ perception about the students’ journey in learning about multicultural education. The researchers’ dual-role (as researchers and course professor and graduate assistant) might have influenced the participants’ responses, as they knew they were part of a research project. Thus, the participants’ spontaneity in sharing their opinions and beliefs about multicultural education may have been hampered, perhaps responding what the researchers expected rather than with their authentic perspectives on the topics.

The implications of this study to teachers, educators and practitioners are that it invites the readers to reflect on their academic preparedness to work with culturally diverse students. For policymakers, the study indicates the need for creating standards that aim to examine in-service graduate student teachers about their self-efficacy, readiness and dispositions to work with culturally diverse students.

Because of the limited publications on doctoral students learning multicultural education, the authors’ study offers an important insight into the transformational experience of doctoral students learning multicultural education and the implications for improving graduate courses in multicultural education.

The purpose of this paper is to identify how pedagogical mentoring contributed to the transformation of teachers’ pedagogical practices and to the consolidation of a team of autonomous leaders in a Colombian regional university, within the framework of a curricular reform.

The paper is a qualitative research under the methodology of experience systematization. In this methodology, the participants and researchers analyze experiences and generate knowledge about why processes are developed in a particular way. This requires organizing, reconstructing and interpreting facts and experiences. In education, the main actors (teachers) research their own pedagogical practice, developing critical thinking and generating curricular and pedagogical knowledge.

Results show that pedagogical mentoring was effective in achieving the proposed objectives by means of learning conversations. The entire process addressed the curriculum in all its complexity, encouraged reflection about the teachers’ pedagogical practice and empowered them as designers, implementers and evaluators of the curriculum.

Curricular reforms are complex educational phenomena. In this study, the authors limited the analysis to understanding how to generate a new community of practice with teachers to implement curricular changes in all their complexity. Other actors such as principals or students were not included in the process.

The systematization of this experience shows that pedagogical mentoring is a successful strategy to develop a curricular reform in a participative manner. In addition, it provides elements – from both pedagogical practice and theory – to foster communities of reflexive teachers who are ultimately the actual designers and implementers of curricula that can tackle the challenges of education for the twenty-first century.

The purpose of this paper is to empower teachers to engage in a process of curricular transformation to integrate a social justice framework, even if it means starting with small steps.

The authors present a set of guiding principles on which social studies teachers can draw to transform their curriculum to embody a social justice framework within and across units of historical inquiry. The principles are anchored in an example historical unit, the Chicago Haymarket Affair of 1886, and an analogous contemporary sub-unit, The Exonerated Five (formerly The Central Park Five incident of 1989).

The guiding principles represent an accessible approach educators can flexibly apply to their process of curricular transformation. The authors provide a balanced approach of emphasizing the need for educators to restructure social studies curriculum with the feasibility of this process at larger or smaller scales according to educators' readiness for change.

The authors outline a process to empower teachers to change the status quo of their social studies teaching, at a scale determined by the teacher. The authors provide a practical, concrete set of guiding principles for educators to make changes that represent social justice integration aligned with existing social studies curriculum and standards. The authors encourage teachers to reflect on their readiness for and progress toward transforming their curriculum to integrate a social justice framework.

This chapter explains how the Social Change Model of Leadership served as the process for uniting the campus on Cabrini Day around one shared vision of Leadership for Social Change. It also uses Mezirow’s theory of transformative learning to examine the resulting transformation that occurred among students engaged in this process.

In an effort to showcase students’ transformation into leaders for social change, the chapter focuses expressly on students enrolled in one particular course. These students worked together to develop a live simulation for Cabrini Day that brought campus community members through the real-world experiences of unaccompanied immigrant minors fleeing to the United States to escape violence in their home countries. The chapter employs an action research methodology to describe how, when, and why these students became transformed. Students’ planning steps, actions within the live simulation event, and reflections on their actions were analyzed using the individual, group, and community values of the Social Change Model, as well as the tenets of transformative learning theory.

Findings reveal that the Social Change Model is a viable process for integrating curricular and cocurricular endeavors on campus. Findings also show that this process can lead to transformative student learning outcomes.

Integrating curricular and cocurricular experiences on college campuses can lead to significant student learning outcomes and experiences.

The aim of this chapter is twofold: first, it will discuss the roots and the aims of the curriculum reform launched in Portugal in 2017, suggesting that it shows the influence of international policy borrowing. Secondly, it aims to present and to discuss the trends that this reform is putting in place, highlighting some successful practices as well some misconceptions and controversial practices. To accomplish such aims, it follows the analytical framework that inspires this book, namely the approach that understands curriculum making as a dynamic process of interactions between different layers of the system, emphasizing the meso and the micro layers of curriculum decision-making. The focus on the experimental period that this chapter narrates is also an opportunity to analyse dynamics among the layers of curriculum making.

This paper aims to explore the creation of shared value (Porter and Kramer, 2011) through technical education by analyzing key events and factors associated with the midsize firm IMCA and the Business Initiative for Technical Education (BITE), a private-public alliance in the Dominican Republic.

The paper results from a five-year longitudinal case study that included an embedded participant (the third author of the paper) and was based on structured and unstructured interviews, observations and multiple archival records. Thematic and content analyses were applied to most of these sources.

IMCA’s staffing needs and search for a solid competitive strategy (one dependent on qualified technicians able to provide multiple services) was the original driver of BITE. The Initiative managed to enlist a formidable alliance of stakeholders, engaged in systemic, bottom-up, “small wins” approaches that targeted not only contents but also pedagogies that transformed multiple polytechnic schools. The initiative has resulted in significant corporate economic benefits and is currently altering fundamental aspects of the technical education of an entire nation.

The research upon which the paper is based consists of a longitudinal case study comprising the years 2011-2015. BITE is a long-term project of which only the first stages have taken place.

The paper focuses specifically on two modalities of shared value creation: productivity in the value chain and local cluster development. It expands the understanding of important issues around shared value creation through private investment in (technical) education, particularly around the following dimensions: curricular and pedagogical transformation, stakeholder engagement and place/time scale. Insights may be of particular relevance for developing regions with significant educational needs.

This paper aims to review changes related to library and information science (LIS) education over the past 20 years.

The literature reviewed for this paper is obtained by internet and database searches and personal communication and is conducted to look for similarities and differences in LIS program changes. A time period for the review is set from 1997 to 2017, and is completed between January and October of 2017. The majority of the searches are conducted in English.

Numerous similarities in changes were evidenced in areas of LIS education, such as curriculum, identification of new training and skills, instructional methods, follow-up on graduates, research on the current job market and post-graduate training support. Differences were identified in areas of capability of program change due to country regulation and course change flexibility.

A review of global program changes is relevant for LIS programs to realize and maintain their value in today’s workforce. It is significant for LIS programs all over the globe to realize that their shifts in curricular and program changes are similar to other LIS programs or where differences can be equally important.

This chapter presents the results of the collective experience of two professors and three students in implementing WebQuests in a preservice English education component. The first part of the chapter provided a definition of WebQuests, situating this particular proposal within the literature on second language education and the Colombian and Latin American contexts. The authors found that the paucity of studies on designing WebQuests, specifically in Latin America, became one of the strengths of their work. The next section situated how implementing WebQuests in this preservice program enabled an expansion of the actual conceptual framework that is currently in place for WebQuests by adding ideas about competences and socio-cultural and critical thinking theories. However, there is an explanation about how WebQuests became a very feasible alternative to respond to the curricular demands of their institution. Next, the authors shared a multi-vocal account, from every author's vantage point, of how they carried out their work with WebQuests. This implementation process generated a series of changes in the way students saw themselves as learners and future teachers, gaining more ownership of the idea of WebQuests beyond a semester assignment. The instructors, as the result of their work, are now thinking of better ways to redefine how they use WebQuests and how they will get their other cohorts involved in collaborative academic efforts. This chapter is, then, not only an account of an experience, but an invitation to think about how to expand the boundaries of preservice teacher education through technological mediation.

This study aims to examine how teacher candidates of Color (TCoCs) experienced and perceived culturally responsive teaching across three teacher education programs at a predominately White institution in the USA. At the time of the study, the campus was reeling from a series of racist incidents on- and off-campus, and the teacher education programs were attempting to recruit more TCoCs.

Drawing on a critical race theory counternarrative approach and qualitative research focus-group interviews, the authors centered the voices of seven TCoCs and their experiences with culturally responsive teaching in their coursework.

The TCoCs experienced and perceived culturally responsive teaching as promising yet fleeting, missing the mark, and a misuse of culture and language that resulted in harm. The TCoCs urge teacher education to hire racially–ethnically–linguistically diverse faculty, provide affirming spaces for TCoCs, and curricular transformation.

Study findings contribute to recent calls for teacher education programs to attend to the lived experiences, concerns and expectations of future teachers of color.

The purpose of this paper is to seek answers to questions on how equity of information literacy and learning outcomes have evolved with the ongoing advances in technologies in teaching and learning across schools. The authors’ report on a five-year long bring your own device (BYOD) journey of one school, which was one of the earliest adopters of one-to-one learning devices in New Zealand.

Using a socio-cultural ecological lens for analysis, a longitudinal study has investigated aspects of how digital/information literacy, computer self-efficacy, and nature of technology usage are transforming school and classroom curriculum practices.

Findings of this study reveal a significant shift in social and academic boundaries between formal and informal learning spaces. One-to-one learning devices provide the link between school and home, as students take more ownership of their learning, and teachers become facilitators. Curricula changes and proper technological support systems introduced in the school structures have given agency to students resulting in greater acceptance of the BYOD policy and extensions to learning beyond formal classroom spaces. Digital divide amongst learners has evolved beyond equity in access and equity in capabilities to become more inclusive, thereby paving the way for equity in learning outcomes.

This study has been conducted in a school which is located in a relatively high socio-economic region. To achieve a more holistic view, there is a need for further studies to be conducted in schools from low socio-economic communities.

This paper adds to the existing literature by sharing teacher reflections on their use of innovative pedagogies to bring changes to classroom curricular practice.