In the current climate, students all too often are the losers . . . in glossy brochures they’re assured that teaching is important, that a spirit of community pervades the campus, and that general education is the core of the undergraduate experience. But the reality is that on far too many campuses, teaching is not well rewarded and faculty who spend too much time counseling and advising students may diminish their prospects for tenure and promotion.
This book is my journey on the road to understanding how the successful strategists learned to think strategically. In this book, I offer a synthesis of findings from several years of qualitative research in pursuit of a single question: How do successful executives learn to think strategically? As part of an interpretive case study, I conducted in-depth interviews with nine successful executives in Japan, Poland, China, Germany, the United States, and Hong Kong to pursue this inquiry. I visited the executives in their work environments to see what their worlds were like, to ask questions, to listen, and to observe.
The adoption of the comprehensive school as the norm in secondary education in this country resulted in the opening up of the curriculum to a wide spectrum of abilities. In modern languages, for generations the preserve of selective schools, teachers had to find ways of making their subject accessible to middle and low ability learners, validating their teaching by use of graded objectives and the end-of-course Certificate of Secondary Education. For many pupils, however, foreign languages held little appeal and were jettisoned with alacrity at the option stage. These disenchanted learners would say in later life, if they thought about it at all, that they were just 'no good at languages', or that languages were 'boring' or 'useless' or 'too difficult'.
This is the dissertation version (later published as the book) of Anne Crippen-Ruderman's wonderful examination of the relationships between the men and women of Jane Austen's novels in their attempts to attain happiness while preserving their dignity. Crippen-Ruderman's thinking has been profoundly and beneficially shaped by her teachers, Saul Bellow, David Grene, and especially Allan Bloom. Her sensitivity to the nuances of Austen's irony and artistry is truly rare. This book will be a source of continuous meditation for the genuine lovers of Jane Austen's works - "carved in ivory".
What do classroom teachers do on a daily basis to incorporate the study and production of texts in multiple media? What are some of their assignments? How do teachers assign grades in a classroom where the final project may be a sculpture, a film, or a website? This book answers these and many other questions by examining the work of pioneers: teachers who have transformed their classrooms in an effort to broaden the literacy of their students. Describing some of the most innovative examples of teaching and learning, this volume offers practical guidance, including actual lessons, assignments, and assessments that have been used successfully in pioneering classrooms.
