From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
School children sitting in the shade of an orchard in Bamozai, near Gardez, Paktya Province,
Afghanistan
Education is the process of facilitating
learning, or the acquisition of
knowledge,
skills,
values,
beliefs, and
habits. Educational methods include
storytelling,
discussion,
teaching,
training, and directed
research. Education frequently takes place under the guidance of educators, but learners may also
educate themselves. Education can take place in
formal or
informal settings and any
experience
that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts may
be considered educational. The methodology of teaching is called
pedagogy.
Formal education is commonly divided formally into such stages as
preschool or
kindergarten,
primary school,
secondary school and then
college,
university, or
apprenticeship.
A
right to education has been recognized by some governments and the
United Nations. In most regions, education is
compulsory up to a certain age.
Etymology
Etymologically, the word "education" is derived from the Latin
ēducātiō ("A breeding, a bringing up, a rearing") from
ēducō ("I educate, I train") which is related to the
homonym ēdūcō ("I lead forth, I take out; I raise up, I erect") from
ē- ("from, out of") and
dūcō ("I lead, I conduct").
History
Nalanda, ancient centre for higher learning
Education began in prehistory, as adults trained the young in the
knowledge and skills deemed necessary in their society. In pre-
literate
societies, this was achieved orally and through imitation. Story-telling passed knowledge, values, and skills from one generation
to the next. As cultures began to extend their
knowledge
beyond skills that could be readily learned through imitation, formal
education developed. Schools existed in Egypt at the time of the
Middle Kingdom.
Plato founded the
Academy in
Athens, the first institution of higher learning in
Europe. The city of
Alexandria in Egypt, established in 330 BCE, became the successor to Athens as the intellectual cradle of
Ancient Greece. There, the great
Library of Alexandria
was built in the 3rd century BCE. European civilizations suffered a
collapse of literacy and organization following the fall of Rome in CE
476.
In
China,
Confucius (551–479 BCE), of the
State of Lu,
was the country's most influential ancient philosopher, whose
educational outlook continues to influence the societies of China and
neighbours like Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. Confucius gathered disciples
and searched in vain for a ruler who would adopt his ideals for good
governance, but his
Analects were written down by followers and have continued to influence education in East Asia into the modern era.
The
Aztecs also had a well-developed theory about education, which has an equivalent word in
Nahuatl called
tlacahuapahualiztli. It means "the art of raising or educating a person" or "the art of strengthening or bringing up men."
This was a broad conceptualization of education, which prescribed that
it begins at home, supported by formal schooling, and reinforced by
community living. Historians cite that formal education was mandatory
for everyone regardless of social class and gender. There was also the word
neixtlamachiliztli, which is "the act of giving wisdom to the face."
These concepts underscore a complex set of educational practices, which
was oriented towards communicating to the next generation the
experience and intellectual heritage of the past for the purpose of
individual development and his integration into the community.
After the
Fall of Rome, the
Catholic Church became the sole preserver of literate scholarship in Western Europe. The church established
cathedral schools in the Early Middle Ages as centres of advanced education. Some of these establishments ultimately evolved into
medieval universities and forebears of many of Europe's modern universities. During the High Middle Ages,
Chartres Cathedral operated the famous and influential
Chartres Cathedral School.
The medieval universities of Western Christendom were well-integrated
across all of Western Europe, encouraged freedom of inquiry, and
produced a great variety of fine scholars and natural philosophers,
including
Thomas Aquinas of the
University of Naples,
Robert Grosseteste of the
University of Oxford, an early expositor of a systematic method of scientific experimentation, and Saint
Albert the Great, a pioneer of biological field research. Founded in 1088, the
University of Bologne is considered the first, and the oldest continually operating university.
Elsewhere during the Middle Ages,
Islamic science and
mathematics flourished under the Islamic
caliphate which was established across the Middle East, extending from the
Iberian Peninsula in the west to the
Indus in the east and to the
Almoravid Dynasty and
Mali Empire in the south.
The Renaissance in Europe ushered in a
new age of scientific and intellectual inquiry and appreciation of ancient Greek and Roman civilizations. Around 1450,
Johannes Gutenberg
developed a printing press, which allowed works of literature to spread
more quickly. The European Age of Empires saw European ideas of
education in philosophy, religion, arts and sciences spread out across
the globe. Missionaries and scholars also brought back new ideas from
other civilizations – as with the
Jesuit China missions
who played a significant role in the transmission of knowledge,
science, and culture between China and Europe, translating works from
Europe like
Euclid's Elements for Chinese scholars and the thoughts of
Confucius for European audiences.
The Enlightenment saw the emergence of a more secular educational outlook in Europe.
In most countries today, full-time education, whether at school or
otherwise,
is compulsory for all children up to a certain age. Due to this the
proliferation of compulsory education, combined with population growth,
UNESCO has calculated that in the next 30 years more people will receive formal education than in all of human history thus far.
Formal education
Formal education occurs in a
structured environment whose explicit purpose is teaching
students. Usually, formal education takes place in a
school environment with
classrooms of multiple students learning together with a trained, certified teacher of the subject. Most
school systems
are designed around a set of values or ideals that govern all
educational choices in that system. Such choices include curriculum,
organizational models, design of the physical
learning spaces (e.g. classrooms), student-teacher interactions, methods of assessment, class size, educational activities, and more.
Preschool
Preschools provide education from ages approximately three to seven, depending on the country when children enter
primary education. These are also known as
nursery schools and as
kindergarten, except in the US, where kindergarten is a term often used to describe the earliest levels of primary education.
Kindergarten "provide[s] a child-centred, preschool curriculum for
three- to seven-year-old children that aim[s] at unfolding the child's
physical, intellectual, and moral nature with balanced emphasis on each
of them."
Primary
Primary school students with their teacher,
Colombia, 2014
Primary (or elementary) education consists of the first five to seven
years of formal, structured education. In general, primary education
consists of six to eight years of schooling starting at the age of five
or six, although this varies between, and sometimes within, countries.
Globally, around 89% of children aged six to twelve are enrolled in
primary education, and this proportion is rising. Under the
Education For All programs driven by
UNESCO,
most countries have committed to achieving universal enrollment in
primary education by 2015, and in many countries, it is compulsory. The
division between primary and
secondary education is somewhat arbitrary, but it generally occurs at about eleven or twelve years of age. Some education systems have separate
middle schools,
with the transition to the final stage of secondary education taking
place at around the age of fourteen. Schools that provide primary
education, are mostly referred to as
primary schools or
elementary schools. Primary schools are often subdivided into
infant schools and
junior school.
In India, for example,
compulsory education
spans over twelve years, with eight years of elementary education, five
years of primary schooling and three years of upper primary schooling.
Various states in the republic of India provide 12 years of compulsory
school education based on a national
curriculum framework designed by the
National Council of Educational Research and Training.
Secondary
Students working with a teacher at Albany Senior High School,
New Zealand
Chilean high school students during a class photograph, 2002
In most contemporary educational systems of the world, secondary education comprises the formal education that occurs during
adolescence. It is characterized by transition from the typically compulsory, comprehensive
primary education for
minors, to the optional, selective
tertiary, "postsecondary", or "
higher" education (e.g.
university, vocational school) for
adults. Depending on the system, schools for this period, or a part of it, may be called secondary or
high schools,
gymnasiums,
lyceums, middle schools,
colleges,
or vocational schools. The exact meaning of any of these terms varies
from one system to another. The exact boundary between primary and
secondary education also varies from country to country and even within
them but is generally around the seventh to the tenth year of schooling.
Secondary education occurs mainly during the teenage years. In the United States, Canada, and
Australia, primary and secondary education together are sometimes referred to as
K-12 education, and in New Zealand Year 1–13 is used. The purpose of secondary education can be to give
common knowledge, to prepare for
higher education, or to train directly in a
profession.
Secondary education in the United States did not emerge until
1910, with the rise of large corporations and advancing technology in
factories, which required
skilled workers. In order to meet this new job demand,
high schools were created, with a curriculum focused on practical job skills that would better prepare students for
white collar or skilled
blue collar
work. This proved beneficial for both employers and employees, since
the improved human capital lowered costs for the employer, while skilled
employees received higher wages.
Secondary education has a longer history in Europe, where grammar
schools or academies date from as early as the 16th century, in the
form of
public schools,
fee-paying schools, or charitable educational foundations, which themselves date even further back.
Community colleges
offer another option at this transitional stage of education. They
provide nonresidential junior college courses to people living in a
particular area.
Tertiary (higher)
Higher education, also called tertiary, third stage, or postsecondary
education, is the non-compulsory educational level that follows the
completion of a school such as a high school or
secondary school. Tertiary education is normally taken to include
undergraduate and
postgraduate education, as well as
vocational education and training.
Colleges and universities mainly provide tertiary education.
Collectively, these are sometimes known as tertiary institutions.
Individuals who complete tertiary education generally receive
certificates,
diplomas, or
academic degrees.
Higher education typically involves work towards a degree-level or
foundation degree
qualification. In most developed countries, a high proportion of the
population (up to 50%) now enter higher education at some time in their
lives. Higher education is therefore very important to national
economies, both as a significant industry in its own right and as a source of trained and educated personnel for the rest of the economy.
University education includes teaching, research, and social
services activities, and it includes both the undergraduate level
(sometimes referred to as
tertiary education) and the
graduate (or postgraduate) level (sometimes referred to as
graduate school). Some universities are composed of several colleges.
One type of university education is a
liberal arts education, which can be defined as a "
college or
university curriculum aimed at imparting broad general knowledge and developing general intellectual capacities, in contrast to a professional,
vocational, or technical curriculum." Although what is known today as liberal arts education began in
Europe, the term "
liberal arts college" is more commonly associated with institutions in the
United States such as
Williams College or
Barnard College.
Vocational
Carpentry is normally learned through
apprenticeship with an experienced carpenter
Vocational education
is a form of education focused on direct and practical training for a
specific trade or craft. Vocational education may come in the form of an
apprenticeship or
internship as well as institutions teaching courses such as
carpentry,
agriculture,
engineering,
medicine,
architecture and
the arts.
Special
In the past, those who were disabled were often not eligible for
public education. Children with disabilities were repeatedly denied an
education by
physicians or special tutors. These early physicians (people like
Itard,
Seguin,
Howe,
Gallaudet)
set the foundation for special education today. They focused on
individualized instruction and functional skills. In its early years,
special education was only provided to people with severe disabilities,
but more recently it has been opened to anyone who has experienced
difficulty learning.
Other educational forms
Alternative
While considered "alternative" today, most alternative systems have
existed since ancient times. After the public school system was widely
developed beginning in the 19th century, some parents found reasons to
be discontented with the new system.
Alternative education developed in part as a reaction to perceived limitations and failings of
traditional education. A broad range of educational approaches emerged, including
alternative schools,
self learning,
homeschooling, and
unschooling. Example
alternative schools include
Montessori schools,
Waldorf schools (or
Steiner schools),
Friends schools,
Sands School,
Summerhill School,
Walden's Path,
The Peepal Grove School,
Sudbury Valley School,
Krishnamurti schools, and
open classroom schools.
Charter schools
are another example of alternative education, which have in the recent
years grown in numbers in the US and gained greater importance in its
public education system.
In time, some ideas from these experiments and paradigm challenges may be adopted as the norm in education, just as
Friedrich Fröbel's approach to
early childhood education in 19th-century Germany has been incorporated into contemporary
kindergarten classrooms. Other influential writers and thinkers have included the
Swiss humanitarian Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi; the
American transcendentalists Amos Bronson Alcott,
Ralph Waldo Emerson, and
Henry David Thoreau; the founders of
progressive education,
John Dewey and
Francis Parker; and educational pioneers such as
Maria Montessori and
Rudolf Steiner, and more recently
John Caldwell Holt,
Paul Goodman,
Frederick Mayer,
George Dennison, and
Ivan Illich.
Indigenous
Indigenous education
refers to the inclusion of indigenous knowledge, models, methods, and
content within formal and non-formal educational systems. Often in a
post-colonial context, the growing recognition and use of indigenous
education methods can be a response to the erosion and loss of
indigenous knowledge and language through the processes of colonialism.
Furthermore, it can enable indigenous communities to "reclaim and
revalue their languages and cultures, and in so doing, improve the
educational success of indigenous students."
Informal learning
Informal learning is one of three forms of learning defined by the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Informal learning occurs in a variety of places, such as at
home,
work, and through daily interactions and shared relationships among members of society. For many learners, this includes
language acquisition,
cultural norms, and
manners.
In informal learning, there is often a reference person, a peer
or expert, to guide the learner. If learners have a personal interest
in what they are informally being taught, learners tend to expand their
existing knowledge and conceive new ideas about the topic being learned.
For example, a museum is traditionally considered an informal learning
environment, as there is room for free choice, a diverse and potentially
non-standardized range of topics, flexible structures, socially rich
interaction, and no externally imposed assessments.
While informal learning often takes place outside educational
establishments
and does not follow a specified curriculum, it can also occur within
educational settings and even during formal learning situations.
Educators can structure their lessons to directly utilize their students
informal learning skills within the education setting.
In the late 19th century, education through play began to be
recognized as making an important contribution to child development. In the early 20th century, the concept was broadened to include young adults but the emphasis was on physical activities.
L.P. Jacks,
also an early proponent of lifelong learning, described education
through recreation: "A master in the art of living draws no sharp
distinction between his work and his play, his labour and his leisure,
his mind and his body, his education and his recreation. He hardly knows
which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through
whatever he is doing and leaves others to determine whether he is
working or playing. To himself, he always seems to be doing both. Enough
for him that he does it well." Education through recreation is the opportunity to learn in a seamless fashion through all of life's activities. The concept has been revived by the
University of Western Ontario to teach
anatomy to medical students.
Self-directed learning
Autodidacticism
(also autodidactism) is a term used to describe self-directed learning.
One may become an autodidact at nearly any point in one's life.
Notable autodidacts include
Abraham Lincoln (U.S. president),
Srinivasa Ramanujan (mathematician),
Michael Faraday (chemist and physicist),
Charles Darwin (naturalist),
Thomas Alva Edison (inventor),
Tadao Ando (architect),
George Bernard Shaw (playwright),
Frank Zappa (composer, recording engineer, film director), and
Leonardo da Vinci (engineer, scientist, mathematician).
Open education and electronic technology
Many large university institutions are now starting to offer free or almost free full courses such as
Harvard,
MIT and
Berkeley teaming up to form
edX. Other universities offering open education are prestigious private universities such as
Stanford,
Princeton,
Duke,
Johns Hopkins, the
University of Pennylvania, and
Caltech, as well as notable public universities including
Tsinghua,
Peking,
Edinburgh,
University of Michigan, and
University of Virginia.
Open education has been called the biggest change in the way people learn since the printing press.
Despite favourable studies on effectiveness, many people may still
desire to choose traditional campus education for social and cultural
reasons.
Many open universities are working to have the ability to offer
students standardized testing and traditional degrees and credentials.
The conventional merit-system degree is currently not as common
in open education as it is in campus universities, although some
open universities do already offer conventional degrees such as the
Open University in the
United Kingdom.
Presently, many of the major open education sources offer their own
form of certificate. Due to the popularity of open education, these new
kind of academic certificates are gaining more respect and equal "
academic value" to traditional degrees.
Out of 182 colleges surveyed in 2009 nearly half said tuition for online courses was higher than for campus-based ones.
A recent meta-analysis found that online and blended educational
approaches had better outcomes than methods that used solely
face-to-face interaction.
Education sector
The education sector or education system is a group of institutions
(ministries of education, local educational authorities, teacher
training institutions, schools, universities, etc.) whose primary
purpose is to provide education to children and young people in
educational settings. It involves a wide range of people (
curriculum
developers, inspectors, school principals, teachers, school nurses,
students, etc.). These institutions can vary according to different
contexts.
Schools deliver education, with support from the rest of the education system through various elements such as
education policies
and guidelines – to which school policies can refer – curricula and
learning materials, as well as pre- and in-service teacher training
programmes. The school environment – both physical (infrastructures) and
psychological (school climate) – is also guided by school policies that
should ensure the well-being of students when they are in school. The
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
has found that schools tend to perform best when principals have full
authority and responsibility for ensuring that students are proficient
in core subjects upon graduation. They must also seek feedback from
students for quality-assurance and improvement. Governments should limit
themselves to monitoring student proficiency.
The education sector is fully integrated into society, through
interactions with a large number of stakeholders and other sectors.
These include parents, local communities, religious leaders, NGOs,
stakeholders involved in health,
child protection, justice and law enforcement (police), media and political leadership.
Several UN agencies have asserted that
comprehensive sexuality education should be integrated into school curriculum.
Development goals
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by the United
Nations (UN) General Assembly in September 2015, calls for a new vision
to address the environmental, social and economic concerns facing the
world today. The Agenda includes 17
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 4 on education.
Since 1909, the ratio of children in the developing world
attending school has increased. Before then, a small minority of boys
attended school. By the start of the 21st century, the majority of all
children in most regions of the world attended school.
Universal Primary Education is one of the eight international
Millennium Development Goals, towards which progress has been made in the past decade, though barriers still remain. Securing charitable funding from prospective donors is one particularly persistent problem. Researchers at the
Overseas Development Institute
have indicated that the main obstacles to funding for education include
conflicting donor priorities, an immature aid architecture, and a lack
of evidence and advocacy for the issue. Additionally,
Transparency International has identified
corruption in the education sector as a major stumbling block to achieving Universal Primary Education in Africa. Furthermore, demand in the developing world for improved educational
access is not as high as foreigners have expected. Indigenous
governments are reluctant to take on the ongoing costs involved. There
is also economic pressure from some parents, who prefer their children
to earn money in the short term rather than work towards the long-term
benefits of education.
A study conducted by the
UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning
indicates that stronger capacities in educational planning and
management may have an important spill-over effect on the system as a
whole.
Sustainable capacity development requires complex interventions at the
institutional, organizational and individual levels that could be based
on some foundational principles:
- national leadership and ownership should be the touchstone of any intervention;
- strategies must be context relevant and context specific;
- plans should employ an integrated set of complementary interventions, though implementation may need to proceed in steps;
- partners should commit to a long-term investment in capacity development while working towards some short-term achievements;
- outside intervention should be conditional on an impact assessment of national capacities at various levels;
- a certain percentage of students should be removed for improvisation
of academics (usually practiced in schools, after 10th grade).
Internationalization
Nearly every country now has
Universal Primary Education.
Similarities – in systems or even in ideas – that schools share
internationally have led to an increase in international student
exchanges. The European Socrates-
Erasmus Program facilitates exchanges across European universities. The
Soros Foundation provides many opportunities for students from central Asia and eastern Europe. Programs such as the
International Baccalaureate
have contributed to the internationalization of education. The global
campus online, led by American universities, allows free access to class
materials and lecture files recorded during the actual classes.
The
Programme for International Student Assessment and the
International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement objectively monitor and compare the proficiency of students from a wide range of different nations.
Education and technology in developing countries
The OLPC laptop being introduced to children in
Haiti
Technology plays an increasingly significant role in improving access to education for people living in impoverished areas and
developing countries. Charities like
One Laptop per Child are dedicated to providing infrastructures through which the disadvantaged may access educational materials.
The
OLPC foundation, a group out of
MIT Media Lab and supported by several major corporations, has a stated mission to develop a
$100 laptop for delivering
educational software. The laptops were widely available as of 2008. They are sold at cost or given away based on donations.
In Africa, the
New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) has launched an "
e-school program" to provide all 600,000 primary and high schools with computer equipment, learning materials and
internet access within 10 years. An International Development Agency project called nabuur.com, started with the support of former American President
Bill Clinton, uses the
Internet to allow co-operation by individuals on issues of social development.
India is developing technologies that will bypass land-based
telephone and Internet infrastructure to deliver
distance learning directly to its students. In 2004, the
Indian Space Research Organisation launched
EDUSAT,
a communications satellite providing access to educational materials
that can reach more of the country's population at a greatly reduced
cost.
Private vs public funding in developing countries
Research into LCPS (low-cost private schools) found that over 5 years to July 2013, debate around LCPSs to achieving
Education for All (EFA) objectives was polarized and finding growing coverage in international policy.
The polarization was due to disputes around whether the schools are
affordable for the poor, reach disadvantaged groups, provide quality
education, support or undermine equality, and are financially
sustainable.
The report examined the main challenges encountered by development
organizations which support LCPSs.
Surveys suggest these types of schools are expanding across Africa and
Asia. This success is attributed to excess demand. These surveys found
concern for:
- Equity: This concern is widely found in the literature,
suggesting the growth in low-cost private schooling may be exacerbating
or perpetuating already existing inequalities in developing countries,
between urban and rural populations, lower- and higher-income families,
and between girls and boys. The report findings suggest that girls may
be underrepresented and that LCPS are reaching low-income families in
smaller numbers than higher-income families.
- Quality and educational outcomes: It is difficult to generalize
about the quality of private schools. While most achieve better results
than government counterparts, even after their social background is
taken into account, some studies find the opposite. Quality in terms of
levels of teacher absence, teaching activity, and pupil to teacher
ratios in some countries are better in LCPSs than in government schools.
- Choice and affordability for the poor: Parents can choose private
schools because of perceptions of better-quality teaching and
facilities, and an English language instruction preference.
Nevertheless, the concept of 'choice' does not apply in all contexts, or
to all groups in society, partly because of limited affordability
(which excludes most of the poorest) and other forms of exclusion,
related to caste or social status.
- Cost-effectiveness and financial sustainability: There is evidence
that private schools operate at low cost by keeping teacher salaries
low, and their financial situation may be precarious where they are
reliant on fees from low-income households.
The report showed some cases of successful voucher and subsidy
programs; evaluations of international support to the sector are not
widespread.
Addressing regulatory ineffectiveness is a key challenge. Emerging
approaches stress the importance of understanding the political economy
of the market for LCPS, specifically how relationships of power and
accountability between users, government, and private providers can
produce better education outcomes for the poor.
Educational theory
A
class size experiment in the United States found that attending small
classes for 3 or more years in the early grades increased
high school graduation rates of students from
low income families.
Educational psychology
Educational psychology
is the study of how humans learn in educational settings, the
effectiveness of educational interventions, the psychology of teaching,
and the
social psychology of
schools as
organizations.
Although the terms "educational psychology" and "school psychology" are
often used interchangeably, researchers and theorists are likely to be
identified as
educational psychologists, whereas practitioners in schools or school-related settings are identified as
school psychologists.
Educational psychology is concerned with the processes of educational
attainment in the general population and in sub-populations such as
gifted children and those with specific
disabilities.
Educational psychology can in part be understood through its relationship with other disciplines. It is informed primarily by
psychology, bearing a relationship to that discipline analogous to the relationship between
medicine and
biology. Educational psychology, in turn, informs a wide range of specialties within educational studies, including
instructional design,
educational technology, curriculum development,
organizational learning,
special education and
classroom management. Educational psychology both draws from and contributes to
cognitive science and the
learning sciences.
In universities, departments of educational psychology are usually
housed within faculties of education, possibly accounting for the lack
of representation of educational psychology content in introductory
psychology textbooks (Lucas, Blazek, & Raley, 2006).
The intelligence–education relationship
Intelligence
is an important factor in how the individual responds to education.
Those who have higher intelligence tend to perform better at school and
go on to higher levels of education. This effect is also observable in the opposite direction, in that education increases measurable intelligence. Studies have shown that while educational attainment is important in
predicting intelligence in later life, intelligence at 53 is more
closely correlated to intelligence at 8 years old than to educational
attainment.
Learning modalities
There has been much interest in learning modalities and styles over
the last two decades. The most commonly employed learning modalities
are:
- Visual: learning based on observation and seeing what is being learned.
- Auditory: learning based on listening to instructions/information.
- Kinesthetic: learning based on movement, e.g. hands-on work and engaging in activities.
Other commonly employed modalities include
musical,
interpersonal,
verbal,
logical, and
intrapersonal.
Dunn and Dunn
focused on identifying relevant stimuli that may influence learning and
manipulating the school environment, at about the same time as
Joseph Renzulli recommended varying teaching strategies.
Howard Gardner identified a wide range of modalities in his
Multiple Intelligences theories. The
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and
Keirsey Temperament Sorter, based on the works of
Jung,
focus on understanding how people's personality affects the way they
interact personally, and how this affects the way individuals respond to
each other within the learning environment. The work of
David Kolb and
Anthony Gregorc's Type Delineator follows a similar but more simplified approach.
Some theories propose that all individuals benefit from a variety
of learning modalities, while others suggest that individuals may have
preferred learning styles, learning more easily through visual or
kinesthetic experiences.
A consequence of the latter theory is that effective teaching should
present a variety of teaching methods which cover all three learning
modalities so that different students have equal opportunities to learn
in a way that is effective for them. Guy Claxton has questioned the extent that
learning styles
such as Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic(VAK) are helpful, particularly
as they can have a tendency to label children and therefore restrict
learning.
Recent research has argued, "there is no adequate evidence base to
justify incorporating learning styles assessments into general
educational practice."
Mind, Brain and Education
Educational neuroscience is an emerging
scientific field that brings together researchers in
cognitive neuroscience,
developmental cognitive neuroscience,
educational psychology,
educational technology,
education theory and other related disciplines to explore the interactions between biological processes and education. Researchers in educational neuroscience investigate the
neural mechanisms of
reading,
numerical cognition,
attention, and their attendant difficulties including
dyslexia,
dyscalculia, and
ADHD
as they relate to education. Several academic institutions around the
world are beginning to devote resources to the establishment of
educational neuroscience research.
Philosophy
As an academic field, philosophy of education is "the philosophical
study of education and its problems (...) its central subject matter is
education, and its methods are those of
philosophy".
"The philosophy of education may be either the philosophy of the
process of education or the philosophy of the discipline of education.
That is, it may be part of the discipline in the sense of being
concerned with the aims, forms, methods, or results of the process of
educating or being educated; or it may be metadisciplinary in the sense
of being concerned with the concepts, aims, and methods of the
discipline." As such, it is both part of the field of education and a field of
applied philosophy, drawing from fields of
metaphysics,
epistemology,
axiology and the philosophical approaches (
speculative, prescriptive or
analytic) to address questions in and about
pedagogy,
education policy, and
curriculum, as well as the process of
learning, to name a few.
For example, it might study what constitutes upbringing and education,
the values and norms revealed through upbringing and educational
practices, the limits and legitimization of education as an academic
discipline, and the relation between
education theory and practice.
Purpose of education
There is no broad consensus as to what education's chief aim or aims
are or should be. Some authors stress its value to the individual,
emphasizing its potential for positively influencing students' personal
development, promoting autonomy, forming a cultural identity or
establishing a career or occupation. Other authors emphasize education's
contributions to societal purposes, including good citizenship, shaping
students into productive members of society, thereby promoting
society's general economic development, and preserving cultural values.
Curriculum
In formal education, a
curriculum is the set of courses and their content offered at a
school or
university. As an idea,
curriculum stems from the
Latin word for
race course, referring to the course of
deeds and experiences through which
children grow to become mature
adults. A curriculum is prescriptive and is based on a more general
syllabus which merely specifies what topics must be understood and to what level to achieve a particular grade or standard.
An
academic discipline
is a branch of knowledge which is formally taught, either at the
university–or via some other such method. Each discipline usually has
several sub-disciplines or branches, and distinguishing lines are often
both arbitrary and ambiguous. Examples of broad areas of academic
disciplines include the
natural sciences,
mathematics,
computer science,
social sciences,
humanities and
applied sciences.
Educational institutions may incorporate
fine arts as part of K-12 grade curricula or within majors at
colleges and universities as electives. The various types of fine arts are music, dance, and theatre.
The
Sudbury Valley School offers a model of education without a curricula.
Instruction
Instruction is the facilitation of another's learning. Instructors in primary and secondary institutions are often called
teachers, and they direct the education of
students and might draw on many
subjects like
reading,
writing,
mathematics,
science and
history. Instructors in post-secondary institutions might be called
teachers, instructors, or
professors,
depending on the type of institution; and they primarily teach only
their specific discipline. Studies from the United States suggest that
the quality of teachers is the single most important factor affecting
student performance, and that countries which score highly on
international tests have multiple policies in place to ensure that the
teachers they employ are as effective as possible.
With the passing of NCLB in the United States (No Child Left Behind),
teachers must be highly qualified. A popular way to gauge teaching
performance is to use student evaluations of teachers (SETS), but these
evaluations have been criticized for being counterproductive to learning
and inaccurate due to student bias.
College basketball coach
John Wooden
the Wizard of Westwood would teach through quick "This not That"
technique. He would show (a) the correct way to perform an action, (b)
the incorrect way the player performed it, and again (c) the correct way
to perform an action. This helped him to be a responsive teacher and
fix errors on the fly. Also, less communication from him meant more time
that the player could practice.
Economics of education
It has been argued that high rates of education are essential for countries to be able to achieve high levels of
economic growth.
Empirical analyses tend to support the theoretical prediction that poor
countries should grow faster than rich countries because they can adopt
cutting edge technologies already tried and tested by rich countries.
However,
technology transfer
requires knowledgeable managers and engineers who are able to operate
new machines or production practices borrowed from the leader in order
to close the gap through imitation. Therefore, a country's ability to
learn from the leader is a function of its stock of "
human capital".
Recent study of the determinants of aggregate economic growth have
stressed the importance of fundamental economic institutions and the role of cognitive skills.
At the level of the individual, there is a large literature, generally related to the work of
Jacob Mincer,
on how earnings are related to the schooling and other human capital.
This work has motivated a large number of studies, but is also
controversial. The chief controversies revolve around how to interpret
the impact of schooling. Some students who have indicated a high potential for learning, by testing with a high
intelligence quotient, may not achieve their full academic potential, due to financial difficulties.
Economists
Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis argued in 1976 that there was a fundamental conflict in American schooling between the
egalitarian goal of democratic participation and the inequalities implied by the continued profitability of capitalist production.
The future of education
Many countries are now drastically changing the way they educate
their citizens. The world is changing at an ever quickening rate, which
means that a lot of knowledge becomes obsolete and inaccurate more
quickly. The emphasis is therefore shifting to teaching the skills of
learning: to picking up new knowledge quickly and in as agile a way as
possible. Finnish schools have even begun to move away from the regular
subject-focused curricula, introducing instead developments like
phenomenon-based learning, where students study concepts like climate
change instead.
Education is also becoming a commodity no longer reserved for children. Adults need it too. Some governmental bodies, like the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra in Finland, have even proposed compulsory lifelong education.
Topography
under Hiawatha glacier in Greenland, mapped with airborne radar data
(1997 to 2014, NASA; 2016 Alfred Wegener Institute). Black triangles and
purple circles are elevated peaks around the rim and center. Dotted red
lines and black circles show locations of additional sampling. (Credit:
Kjæer et al. / Science Advances)
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