Can Schools Improve Paper - Map

Here is the map for
Christensen, C., Aaron, S. & Clark, W. (2005). Can schools improve? Phi Delta Kappan. 86(7), 545-550.

Deborah Youdell (2006) - Summary Map

For classmates in Curriculum change and other interested parties.
Here is the summary of:
Youdell, Deborah. (2006). Diversity, inequality and a post-structural politics for edducation. Discourse: Studies in the cultural politics of education. 27(1), 33-42.

How Finns Learn Matheamtics and Science - Introduction

Introduction - Setting the Landscape (Pekhonen, Ahtee & Lavonen, pp.3-7)
According to the authors it was only their second outstanding performance on PISA that Finnish researchers, mostly to be able to respond honestly to questions from reporters and outsiders looking for their keys to success, began to inquire into what accounted for their success. They note however that there is little 'rigid' research on what really happens in mathematics and science classrooms in Finland.
They identify two aims for this book:
1) To explain the Finnish Teacher Education and School System and
2) To explain Finnish children's learning environment at the level of the comprehensive school.

They give a short overview of Finnish Educational Policy whcih was enlightening.
There are three main principles/emphases as gleaned from government and Ministry policy documents:
i) Commitment to a vision of a knowledge-based-society. For example, In 1996 the government set as a target the raising of math and science knowledge to international standards.
ii) Commitment to promoting educational equality. According to this policy all kinds of students should go to common comprehensive schools and learn together as long as possible, up to 9 years. To support this policy books, meals, transport and health care are provided free of charge and special needs teachers and guidance counselors are available to render assistance and give advice.
iii) The devolution of decision making power to local (school) levels. This was where some of the most interesting aspects were revealed:
- Local education providers, to my understanding that is schools, are responsible for organizing general assessment AND for using the data to evaluate how well they are meeting the goals and how well policy is working in practice for them [Wow!]
- Schools and teachers are free to choose learning materials and are responsible for their decisions. National level inspections of learning materials ended in the early 1990's. [Double Wow].
- There are no national or local school inspectors. "Teachers are valued as experts in curriculum development, teaching and in assessment at all levels."
Now that is a strong tangible statement and symbol of professional confidence in your teaching fraternity.
The rest of the Introduction is a typical overview of the chapters.

How Finns Learn Mathematics and Science

I've been meaning to get to this book for a while now. It is an edited collection from Sense Publishers, out of the Netherlands, published in 2007.

Here's the back cover synopsis:
The Finnish students' success in the first PISA 2000 evaluation was a surprise to most of the Finns, and even people working in teacher education and educational administration had difficulties to believe that this situation would continue. Finland's second success in the next PISA 2003 comparison has been very pleasing for teachers and teacher educators, and for education policymakers. The good results on the second time waked us to think seriously on possible reasons for the success. Several international journalists and expert delegations from different countries have asked these reasons while visiting in Finland. Since we had no commonly acceptable explanation to students' success, we decided at the University of Helsinki to put together a book "How Finns Learn Mathematics and Science?", in order to give a commonly acceptable explanation to our students' success in the international PISA evaluations. The book tries to explain the Finnish teacher education and school system as well as Finnish children's learning environment at the level of the comprehensive school, and thus give explanations for the Finnish PISA success.The book is a joint enterprise of Finnish teacher educators. The explanations for success given by altogether 40 authors can be classified into three groups: Teacher and teacher education, school and curriculum, and other factors, like the use of ICT and a developmental project LUMA. The main result is that there is not one clear explanation, although research-based teacher education seems to have some influence. But the true explanation may be a combination of several factors.
Here's the link to the book on the publisher's website.
There are 16 chapters and an introduction and concluding section.

Welcome

OK, so this will be my second blog where hopefully I will summarize and occasionally review mainly books and articles and occasionally other resources relating to education. If you find it useful leave me a comment. If you think I've got a wrong leave me a comment.