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This book brings together some of the world’s leading water researchers with an especially written collection of chapters on: water economics; transboundary water; water and development; water and energy; and water concepts.
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This book presents an overview of the main research findings and case studies concerning education and skills for inclusive growth, green jobs and the greening of economies. Focusing on India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Viet Nam, it discusses government and business sector responses to these issues and how Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) systems and institutions are addressing both the renewal of curricula in the context of green growth dynamics, and patterns of training and skills development to meet demands. In addition, the book examines cross-country issues, concerns and prospects regarding education and skills for inclusive growth and green jobs for the four countries. These include critical themes and issues in the selected industry sectors triggering a demand for green jobs in the region; how industry is responding to those demands; areas impeding the transition from traditional to green practices; the importance of skills development; the role of TVET in addressing industry needs; and reasons for the slow response of TVET to green skills.While other studies conducted in Asia – and internationally - on the same topic have largely relied on secondary sources, this study conducted by the Asian Development Bank and the Education University of Hong Kong (ADB-EdUHK) is unique in that the findings, conclusions and recommendations reported on are based on primary data. As part of the study, TVET providers, business enterprises, policy makers and practitioners were surveyed using questionnaires and face-to-face interviews. In addition, workshops were held in each of the four countries to ascertain the views of key stakeholders in government, nongovernment organisations, members of the international development community, TVET providers and members of the business sector.The book also provides summaries of the case studies undertaken for India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Viet Nam.
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This books investigates the background and nature of the Ottoman Jihad proclamation, but also its effects in the wider Middle East. It looks at the German hopes and British fears of a worldwide rising of Muslims in the colonial empires. It also discusses the fierce academic debates caused by the Jihad proclamation, in which the 1915 manifesto of Leiden Islam scholar Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje (“Holy War Made in Germany”) played a key role.
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This book provides a comprehensive overview of volcanic crisis research, the goal being to establish ways of successfully applying volcanology in practice and to identify areas that need to be addressed for future progress. It shows how volcano crises are managed in practice, and helps to establish best practices. Consequently the book brings together authors from all over the globe who work with volcanoes, ranging from observatory volcanologists, disaster practitioners and government officials to NGO-based and government practitioners to address three key aspects of volcanic crises.
First, the book explores the unique nature of volcanic hazards, which makes them a particularly challenging threat to forecast and manage, due in part to their varying spatial and temporal characteristics. Second, it presents lessons learned on how to best manage volcanic events based on a number of crises that have shaped our understanding of volcanic hazards and crises management. Third, it discusses the diverse and wide-ranging aspects of communication involved in crises, which merge old practices and new technologies to accommodate an increasingly challenging and globalised world.
The information and insights presented here are essential to tapping established knowledge, moving towards more robust volcanic crises management, and understanding how the volcanic world is perceived from a range of standpoints and contexts around the globe.
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This cutting edge text considers how Asian philanthropists and charitable organizations break with Western philanthropic traditions and examines the key traits and trends that make social investment in Asia unique. Based on 30 case studies of excellent social delivery organizations (SDOs) and social enterprises as well as interviews with ultra-high net-worth individuals throughout Asia, this book examines which characteristics and strategies lead to successful philanthropy and social delivery organizations. Providing evidence based findings on philanthropy, social investment and social delivery organizations in Asia, this book provides invaluable resources for those wishing to deepen their understanding of the sector and what this means for political and economic development in the region.
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This open access book discusses Rotterdam as clear example of a superdiverse city that is only reluctantly coming to terms with this new reality. Rotterdam, as is true for many post-industrial cities, has seen a considerable backlash against migration and diversity: the populist party Leefbaar Rotterdam of the late Pim Fortuyn is already for many years the largest party in the city. At the same time Rotterdam has become a majority minority city where the people of Dutch descent have become a numerical minority themselves. The book explores how Rotterdam is coming to terms with superdiversity, by an analysis of its migration history of the city, the composition of the migrant population and the Dutch working class population, local politics and by a comparison with Amsterdam and other cities. As such it contributes to a better understanding not just of how and why super-diverse cities emerge but also how and why the reaction to a super-diverse reality can be so different.
By focusing on different aspects of superdiversity, coming from different angles and various disciplinary backgrounds, this book will be of interest to students and scholars in migration, policy sciences, urban studies and urban sociology, as well as policymakers and the broader public.
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This volume shares new data relating to Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA), with emphasis on experiences in Eastern and Southern Africa. The book is a collection of research by authors from over 30 institutions, spanning the public and private sectors, with specific knowledge on agricultural development in the region discussed. The material is assembled to answer key questions on the following five topic areas: (1) Climate impacts: What are the most significant current and near future climate risks undermining smallholder livelihoods? (2) Varieties: How can climate-smart varieties be delivered quickly and cost-effectively to smallholders? (3) Farm management: What are key lessons on the contributions from soil and water management to climate risk reduction and how should interventions be prioritized? (4) Value chains: How can climate risks to supply and value chains be reduced? and (5) Scaling up: How can most promising climate risks reduction strategies be quickly scaled up and what are critical success factors? Readers who will be interested in this book include students, policy makers, and researchers studying climate change impacts on agriculture and agricultural sustainability.
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This open access volume is the first comprehensive assessment of the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region. It comprises important scientific research on the social, economic, and environmental pillars of sustainable mountain development and will serve as a basis for evidence-based decision-making to safeguard the environment and advance people’s well-being. The compiled content is based on the collective knowledge of over 300 leading researchers, experts and policymakers, brought together by the Hindu Kush Himalayan Monitoring and Assessment Programme (HIMAP) under the coordination of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). This assessment was conducted between 2013 and 2017 as the first of a series of monitoring and assessment reports, under the guidance of the HIMAP Steering Committee: Eklabya Sharma (ICIMOD), Atiq Raman (Bangladesh), Yuba Raj Khatiwada (Nepal), Linxiu Zhang (China), Surendra Pratap Singh (India), Tandong Yao (China) and David Molden (ICIMOD and Chair of the HIMAP SC).
This First HKH Assessment Report consists of 16 chapters, which comprehensively assess the current state of knowledge of the HKH region, increase the understanding of various drivers of change and their impacts, address critical data gaps and develop a set of evidence-based and actionable policy solutions and recommendations. These are linked to nine mountain priorities for the mountains and people of the HKH consistent with the Sustainable Development Goals.
This book is a must-read for policy makers, academics and students interested in this important region and an essentially important resource for contributors to global assessments such as the IPCC reports.
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Drawing on new research material from ten European countries, Asylum Determination in Europe: Ethnographic Perspectives brings together a range of detailed accounts of the legal and bureaucratic processes by which asylum claims are decided.The book includes a legal overview of European asylum determination procedures, followed by sections on the diverse actors involved, the means by which they communicate, and the ways in which they make life and death decisions on a daily basis. It offers a contextually rich account that moves beyond doctrinal law to uncover the gaps and variances between formal policy and legislation, and law as actually practiced.
The contributors employ a variety of disciplinary perspectives – sociological, anthropological, geographical and linguistic – but are united in their use of an ethnographic methodological approach. Through this lens, the book captures the confusion, improvisation, inconsistency, complexity and emotional turmoil inherent to the process of claiming asylum in Europe.
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This open access book covers comprehensive but fundamental principles and concepts of disaster and accident prevention and mitigation, countermeasures, and recovery from disasters or accidents including treatment and care of the victims. Safety and security problems in our society involve not only engineering but also social, legal, economic, cultural, and psychological issues. The enhancement needed for societal safety includes comprehensive activities of all aspects from precaution to recovery, not only of people but also of governments. In this context, the authors, members of the Faculty of Societal Safety Science, Kansai University, conducted many discussions and concluded that the major strategy is consistent independently of the type and magnitude of disaster or accident, being also the principle of the foundation of our faculty.
The topics treated in this book are rather widely distributed but are well organized sequentially to provide a clear understanding of the principles of societal safety. In the first part the fundamental concepts of safety are discussed. The second part deals with risks in the societal and natural environment. Then follows, in the third part, a description of the quantitative estimation of risk and its assessment and management. The fourth part is devoted to disaster prevention, mitigation, and recovery systems. The final, fifth part presents a future perspective of societal safety science.
Thorough reading of this introductory volume of societal safety science provides a clear image of the issues. This is largely because the Japanese have suffered often from natural disasters and not only have gained much valuable information about disasters but also have accumulated a store of experience. We are still in the process of reconstruction from the Great East Japan earthquake and the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident. This book is especially valuable therefore in studying the safety and security of people and their societies.
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This open access book summarizes the findings of the VUELCO project, a multi-disciplinary and cross-boundary research funded by the European Commission's 7th framework program. It comprises four broad topics:
1. The global significance of volcanic unrest
2. Geophysical and geochemical fingerprints of unrest and precursory activity
3. Magma dynamics leading to unrest phenomena
4. Bridging the gap between science and decision-making
Volcanic unrest is a complex multi-hazard phenomenon. The fact that unrest may, or may not lead to an imminent eruption contributes significant uncertainty to short-term volcanic hazard and risk assessment. Although it is reasonable to assume that all eruptions are associated with precursory activity of some sort, the understanding of the causative links between subsurface processes, resulting unrest signals and imminent eruption is incomplete. When a volcano evolves from dormancy into a phase of unrest, important scientific, political and social questions need to be addressed. This book is aimed at graduate students, researchers of volcanic phenomena, professionals in volcanic hazard and risk assessment, observatory personnel, as well as emergency managers who wish to learn about the complex nature of volcanic unrest and how to utilize new findings to deal with unrest phenomena at scientific and emergency managing levels.
This book is open access under a CC BY license.
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This open access book illustrates a new type of formative intervention for in-service teacher training in entrepreneurship education. The book describes a Change Laboratory and shows how teachers and workshop assistants develop the idea of a multidisciplinary project entailing the design of a self-service and parking lot in a dismissed area close to the city centre. The multidisciplinary project is taken as example of how an idea is debated and turned into collective action and change, the very essence of initiative and entrepreneurship. The Change Laboratory thus increases the participation of students, teachers and stakeholders in the school towards a new curriculum through the implementation of a multidisciplinary project connecting school with the world outside and working life.
The book features a foreword by Luke Pittaway, USASBE Entrepreneurship Educator of 2018.
The manuscript discusses key concepts of Cultural Historical Activity Theory’s Change Laboratory as a formative intervention in a coherent and accessible manner. Beyond that it carefully illustrates how the Change Laboratory and its principles of double stimulation and ascending from the abstract to the concrete can be used as a theory of change to address one of the difficult and new demands of the European Union’s New Skills Agenda. The author takes the reader through the expansive learning journey and uses strong evidence to show how a new object can be developed, and how associated tensions and contradictions can be surfaced and tackled by actors with a partially shared object, and how a new concept can be formed and enriched through implementation and reflection in a manner that generates collective transformative agency. (Reviewer)
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 654101.
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This open access book explores the key dimensions of a future education system designed to enable individuals, schools, and communities to achieve the twin twenty-first century challenges of sustainability and human well-being. For much of the twentieth century, Western education systems prepared students to enter the workforce, contribute to society and succeed in relatively predictable contexts. Today, people are at the controls of the planet—making decisions that are dramatically reshaping social, economic, and environmental systems at a global scale. What is education’s purpose in this new reality? What and how must we learn now? The volatility and uncertainty caused by digitalization, globalization, and climate change weave a common backdrop through each chapter. Using case studies drawn from Finland and the US, chapter authors explore various aspects of learning and education system design through the lenses of sustainability and human well-being to evaluate how our understanding and practice of education must transform. Using their scholarly research and experience as practitioners, the authors propose new approaches to preparing learners for a new frontier of the human experience fraught with risks but full of opportunity.
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Nanna Verhoeff’s new book is a must for anybody interested in visual culture and media theory. It offers a rich and stimulating theoretical account of the central dimension of our contemporary existence – interfacing and navigating both data and physical world through a variety of screens (game consoles, mobile phones, car interfaces, GPS devices, etc.) In the process of exploring these new screen practices, Verhoeff offers fresh perspectives on many of the key questions in media and new media studies as well as a number of new original theoretical concepts. As the first theoretical manual for the society of mobile screens, this book will become an essential reference for all future investigations of our mobile screen condition. – Lev Manovich
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This book reviews Internet research and political theory seeking theoretically "cool-headed" perspectives on the current public political spaces in advanced societies. Aspects of the political theories of Rawls and Habermas are discussed and contrasted with contestation-oriented theories. In light of how the Internet takes part in structurally transforming the public sphere, the book draws on sociological and realist insights in order to encircle a more realist view. It briefly reconsiders such strange bedfellows as sociological systems theory (Niklas Luhmann) and political realism (eg. Bernard Williams). The purpose is not to construct a realist theory of the internet-based public sphere, but to point out central insights on which such a theory can be built.
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The digital turn might as well be marked as an Asian turn. From flash-mobs in Taiwan to feminist mobilisations in India, from hybrid media strategies of Syrian activists to cultural protests in Thailand, we see the emergence of political acts that transform the citizen from being a beneficiary of change to becoming an agent of change. In co-shaping these changes, what the digital shall be used for, and what its consequences will be, are both up for speculation and negotiation.
Digital Activism in Asia marks a particular shift where these questions are no longer being refracted through the ICT4D logic, or the West’s attempts to save Asia from itself, but shaped by multiplicity, unevenness, and urgencies of digital sites and users in Asia.
This reader crowd-sources critical tools, concepts, analyses, and annotations, self-identified by a network of change makers in Asia as important in their own practices within their own contexts.
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Media, Society, Culture, and You is an approachable introductory Mass Communication text that covers major mass communication terms and concepts including "digital culture." It discusses various media platforms and how they are evolving as Information and Communication Technologies change.
This book has been peer-reviewed by 6 subject experts and is now available for adoption or adaptation. If you plan to adopt or adapt this open textbook, please let us know by filling out our adoption form.
You can view the book's Review Statement for more information about reviewers and the review process. An Accessibility Assessment for this is book has also been prepared to see how this book meets accessibility standards.
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In this book, McHenry challenges the still-regnant paradigm of knowledge acquisition as the end and means of schooling, supplanting it with an inquiry into what knowledge is. Tracing the development of the idea of knowledge from its roots in Descartes and Locke through the ontological turn in Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Buber, he provides an alternative rationale and vocabulary for a practice of schooling that engages teachers with students in being-together-and-inventing. Philosophically centered though accessibly written, with examples from the author’s personal experiences with his own child and his students, the book engages the reader in inquiry rather than argument, leaving her not with a list of tips and prescriptions, but with a capacity for encounter with the actual persons in her classroom.
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Whose History? aims to illustrate how historical novels and their related genres may be used as an engaging teacher/learning strategy for student teachers in pre-service teacher education courses. It does not argue all teaching of History curriculum in pre-service units should be based on the use of historical novels as a stimulus, nor does it argue for a particular percentage of the use of historical novels in such courses. It simply seeks to argue the case for this particular approach, leaving the extent of the use of historical novels used in History curriculum units to the professional expertise of the lecturers responsible for the units.
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What is trust and how new technologies are changing or affecting the concept of trust? This publication offers insights from researchers working in educational technology and distance education, collected in the frame of the European FP-7 Marie-Curie People project “Stimulators and inhibitors of a culture of trust in educational interactions assisted by modern information and communication technology”, and provides examples of implications of trust for successful learning experiences in distance education. The research goal is to understand how trust has changed or is changing: this is related not only to the modification of the meaning, but also indicators upon which people built their judgements.
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The educational imagination is the capacity to think critically beyond our located, daily experiences of education. It breaks away from the immediacy of personal understanding by placing education within wider, deeper and longer contexts. Boundaries of the Educational Imagination develops the educational imagination by more
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The educational system, whilst not the only factor involved, can play a vital role in
forming the attitudes that people carry over into their adult lives, attitudes which
will help to decide whether their society is characterised by openness and trans-
parency or by secretive and bureaucratic decision making.
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This collection brings together scholarship and pedagogy from multiple perspectives and disciplines, offering nuanced and complex perspectives on Information Literacy in the second decade of the 21st century. Taking as a starting point the concerns that prompted the Association of Research Libraries (ACRL) to review the Information Literacy Standards for Higher Education and develop the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education (2015), the chapters in this collection consider six frameworks that place students in the role of both consumer and producer of information within today's collaborative information environments. Contributors respond directly or indirectly to the work of the ACRL, providing a bridge between past/current knowledge and the future and advancing the notion that faculty, librarians, administrators, and external stakeholders share responsibility and accountability for the teaching, learning, and research of Information Literacy.
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What are today’s main concepts and theories – and the main stakes – associated with the issue of competences in organisations? Several topics are discussed, including competence issues regarding the evolution of work, professionalisation, competence evaluation, competence management, and the competences of adult educators
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The importance of adult education is growing steadily— be it in relation with migration, matters of inclus - ion, the work place etc. Thus, this international perspective on the most important research issues in adult education is a wealth of knowledge for anyone related to this field. The book is composed as a text book and thus, provides didactic material for discussion and further exploration of research in the field of AE from an international perspective. From the Contents: EU policy in Education and AE: links with Research opportunities on the field Support for Research in Adult Education in the European Union Main areas of Research in AE at the International level · Research on Migration. · Research on Inclusion, Access and Participation · Professionals, Assessment and Counselling · Learning in the Workplace International organisations and networks with influence to Adult Education
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Ebooks are coming of age in education, as this exciting collection commissioned by Jisc demonstrates. Case studies, reflecting ebook success stories across the higher and further education sectors, include: - An innovative app to encourage ebook take-up in a Welsh college. - A partnership between a library and research centre to create open access monographs and midigraphs. - Several examples of creative negotiations with ebook publishers. Insight chapters address hot topics in the ebook universe, including: - The changing world of access to scholarly digital content in the mobile environment. - The challenges faced by the library as online distance learning moves from margin to mainstream. - How ebooks have the potential to meet a wide range of accessibility needs. - Experimentation with ebooks as a shared service. This collection will provide inspiration and guidance to institutions as they develop projects and services to support students and researchers and will be of interest to library practitioners, publishers, ebook vendors, information professionals, teachers, lecturers and students. Jisc, in collaboration with Ubiquity Press, is pleased to be making this publication available open access on a CC-BY licence. (DOI: http://dx.doi.org//10.5334/bal)
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Learning is a key issue in education. Being familiar with contemporary learning theory, therefore, is an essential prerequisite for education scholars and practitioners alike.
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How to identify, analyse, and assess the various types of adult learning needs? How to develop programmes tailored to these needs? This study guide is written for postgraduate students preparing to become professional adult educators, as well as for those intending to plan educational programmes for adults. The book covers the various types of adult (learning)needs and provides hints on how to identify, analyse, and assess these needs. It presents typical challenges involved in performing such an analysis as well as theoretical considerations of the concept and types of needs, of diagnosing educational needs and their theoretical understanding. The author draws conclusions on how to develop programmes tailored to the needs identified. With a focus on practical concerns, she illustrates the necessary steps as well as the factors to be considered when designing an educational programme for adults, both in the planning stage and in the stages of implementation and evaluation. From the Contents: The Importance of Needs Analysis and Programme Planning in Adult Education Needs: Theoretical Considerations Fields of Needs Analysis in an Educational Context Methods of Needs Analysis in Adult Education Needs Analysis for Planning Educational Programmes Steps in Programme Planning in Adult Education
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For many learners, assessment conjures up visions of red pens scrawling percentages in the top right-hand corner of exams and feelings of stress, inadequacy, and failure. Although learners sometimes respond negatively to evaluation, assessments have provided educational institutions with important information about learning outcomes and the quality of education for many decades. But how accurate are these data and have they informed practice or been fully incorporated into the learning cycle? Conrad and Openo argue that the potential inherent in online learning environments to alter and improve assessment and evaluation has yet to be explored by educators and learners.
In their investigation of assessment methods and learning approaches, Conrad and Openo explore assessment that engages and authentically evaluates learning. They insist that online and distance learning environments afford educators new opportunities to embrace only the most effective face-to-face assessment methods and to realize the potential of engaged learning in the digital age. In this volume, practitioners will find not only an indispensable introduction to new forms of assessment but also a number of best practices as described by experienced educators.
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The reason why Randall Fallows wrote Exploring Perspectives: A Concise Guide to Analysis is simple: to help give students a better understanding of how to discover, develop, and revise an analytical essay. Here is how his 5 chapter book goes about doing just that:
The first two chapters focus on the nature of an analysis and what's involved in writing an analytical essay.
Randall shows that analysis consists of a balance of assertions (statements which present their viewpoints or launch an exploration of their concerns), examples (specific passages/scenes/events which inspire these views), explanations (statements that reveal how the examples support the assertions), and significance (statements which reveal the importance of their study to personal and/or cultural issues).
After showing why each feature should be present throughout an essay, he reveals how to "set the stage" for producing one of their own.
He first helps students to evaluate their own views on a subject and to examine how these views emerge from their own experiences, values and judgments.
He, then, shows them how to research what others have said about the subject and provides suggestions for evaluating and incorporating this research into their own perspectives.
Finally, Randall discusses the nature of writing, not as a linear procedure, but as a recursive process where the discovery and clarification of a concept occur simultaneously.
The remaining three chapters reveal more specific advice on how to develop an analytical essay.
Exploring Perspectives: A Concise Guide to Analysis by Randall Fallows is a great text to prepare any student to write analytical essays for the argument and persuasion courses.
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Teaching Autoethnography: Personal Writing in the Classroom is dedicated to the practice of immersive ethnographic and autoethnographic writing that encourages authors to participate in the communities about which they write. This book draws not only on critical qualitative inquiry methods such as interview and observation, but also on theories and sensibilities from creative writing and performance studies, which encourage self-reflection and narrative composition. Concepts from qualitative inquiry studies, which examine everyday life, are combined with approaches to the creation of character and scene to help writers develop engaging narratives that examine chosen subcultures and the author's position in relation to her research subjects. The book brings together a brief history of first-person qualitative research and writing from the past forty years, examining the evolution of nonfiction and qualitative approaches in relation to the personal essay. A selection of recent student writing in the genre as well as reflective student essays on the experience of conducting research in the classroom is presented in the context of exercises for coursework and beyond. Also explored in detail are guidelines for interviewing and identifying subjects and techniques for creating informed sketches and images that engage the reader. This book provides approaches anyone can use to explore their communities and write about them first-hand. The methods presented can be used for a single assignment in a larger course or to guide an entire semester through many levels and varieties of informed personal writing.
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This open access book investigates the inter-relationship between the mind and a potential opportunity to explore the psychology of entrepreneurship. Building on recent research, this book offers a broad scope investigation of the different aspects of what goes on in the mind of the (potential) entrepreneur as he or she considers the pursuit of a potential opportunity, the creation of a new organization, and/or the selection of an entrepreneurial career. This book focuses on individuals as the level of analysis and explores the impact of the organization and the environment only inasmuch as they impact the individual’s cognitions. Readers will learn why some individuals and managers are able to able to identify and successfully act upon opportunities in uncertain environments while others are not. This book applies a cognitive lens to understand individuals’ knowledge, motivation, attention, identity, and emotions in the entrepreneurial process.
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The book is supported by discussion of relevant theory and research in cultural sociology.Beyond Race: Cultural Influences on Human Social Life has stressed learner-centered teaching with the instructor taking on the role of a facilitator of learning. As such, it is expected the instructor will serve as the mediator between the content of this book and learners’ understanding of material on multiple and higher levels. This book does not offer a set of rules in teaching cultural sociology, but rather suggests content and applications to consider and modify as needed by the ever-changing dynamics of instructors and learners.
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As an introductory textbook for social work students studying research methods, this book guides students through the process of creating a research project. Students will learn how to discover a researchable topic that is interesting to them, examine scholarly literature, formulate a proper research question, design a quantitative or qualitative study to answer their question, carry out the design, interpret quantitative or qualitative results, and disseminate their findings to a variety of audiences. Examples are drawn from the author's practice and research experience, as well as topical articles from the literature.
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Introduction to Sociology adheres to the scope and sequence of a typical introductory sociology course. In addition to comprehensive coverage of core concepts, foundational scholars, and emerging theories, we have incorporated section reviews with engaging questions, discussions that help students apply the sociological imagination, and features that draw learners into the discipline in meaningful ways. Although this text can be modified and reorganized to suit your needs, the standard version is organized so that topics are introduced conceptually, with relevant, everyday experiences.
For the student, this book is based on the teaching and research experience of numerous sociologists. In today's global socially networked world, the topic of Sociology is more relevant than ever before. We hope that through this book, students will learn how simple, everyday human actions and interactions can change the world. In this book, you will find applications of Sociology concepts that are relevant, current, and balanced.
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Teachers, instructors and faculty are facing unprecedented change, with often larger classes, more diverse students, demands from government and employers who want more accountability and the development of graduates who are workforce ready, and above all, we are all having to cope with ever changing technology. To handle change of this nature, teachers and instructors need a base of theory and knowledge that will provide a solid foundation for their teaching, no matter what changes or pressures they face.
Although the book contains many practical examples, it is more than a cookbook on how to teach. It addresses the following questions:
is the nature of knowledge changing, and how do different views on the nature of knowledge result in different approaches to teaching?
what is the science and research that can best help me in my teaching?
how do I decide whether my courses should be face-to-face, blended or fully online?
what strategies work best when teaching in a technology-rich environment?
what methods of teaching are most effective for blended and online classes?
how do I make choices among all the available media, whether text, audio, video, computer, or social media, in order to benefit my students and my subject?
how do I maintain high quality in my teaching in a rapidly changing learning environment while managing my workload?
what are the real possibilities for teaching and learning using MOOCs, OERS, open textbooks?
In summary, the book examines the underlying principles that guide effective teaching in an age when everyone, and in particular the students we are teaching, are using technology. A framework and a set of guidelines are suggested for making decisions about your teaching, while understanding that every subject is different, and every teacher and instructor has something unique and special to bring to their teaching.
In the end, though, the book isn't really about teachers and instructors, although you are the target group. It's about you helping your students to develop the knowledge and skills they will need in a digital age: not so much digital skills, but the thinking and knowledge that will bring them success. For that to happen, though, your students need you to be on top of your game. This book is your coach.
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