A Study of Educational Change as Culture Change--a Comparison of the Grammar-Translation Method and Communicative Language Teaching Method

The world is complex and increasingly changing.The old education theory and the education model are greatly impacted,and it is difficult to meet the challenge of social change.To adapt to the changing society,education must conform to the social changes,grasp the direction of change,to seek a new position.This paper uses the theory of"educational culture"to explain the change from the Grammar Translation Method(GTM)to the Communicative Language Teaching(CLT)method.Two different teaching methods are two different concepts,representing two different cultural connotations.

An Overview of ICT and Educational Change:Development,Impacts,and Factors

This paper focuses on the development of information and communication technology(ICT)in education,its impact on teaching and learning,as well as the factors that sustain change in education.Since the rise of e-learning in the 1990s,ICT has evolved rapidly in the field of education.Furthermore,ICT is seen as a catalyst for change in education,and its impact on both,students and teachers should not be understated.In addition,the sustenance of these positive changes brought about by ICT should also garner attention.This paper consequently focuses on an overview of the evolution of ICT in the field of education in the last decade or so,its impact on the changes in teaching and learning,as well as the factors that sustain the changes.Through a study of prior literature and reports,the results found that ICT has had a different focus and predicted direction each year from 2009 to the present,as well as significant effects on the content,approach,time,and place of teaching,administration,research process,and roles of teachers and students.Additional factors that influence educational change include funding,equipment software,and personnel expertise.Therefore,this article provides referenceable evidence for further ICT applications in education.

Transforming the Educational System From Apartheid Education to an Egalitarian Ideal： Challenges Faced by the South African Government

This paper probes the problems of pedagogy within the South African context. The paper is written against the backdrop of the South African educational system that is at the crossroads regarding its adoption of a participatory form of education （i.e., an educational system that is rooted on egalitarian ideals） or a system of education that is more elitist and has little, if any, to do with the uplifting of the historically marginalized. Since the paper is based on a conceptual analysis of theories of non-formal and/or adult education, the praxis of the argument is informed by philosophers who have written extensively on the subject. Solid and educational policies are also compared in order to formulate conclusions and strategies based on the analysis of educational trends that encourage democratic ideals.

Beyond Well-being: The Quest for Wholeness and Purpose in Education

Purpose:This article develops a critique of contemporary understandings and practices related to well-being in education.It proposes a fuller development of wholeness and purpose that supplements and goes beyond the new well-being agenda.Design/Approach/Methods:This article draws upon a document analysis of conceptual and policy frameworks related to well-being.It builds its critique of well-being with reference to a qualitative study consisting of 222 interviews with educators in the Canadian province of Ontario with regard to their understandings of well-being.It includes references to the research and development work in the U.S.,Germany,and Norway.Findings:The inclusion of well-being in policy agendas is an important step forward in the field of educational change,but this indication of progress is in danger of being reified through simplistic understandings of life satisfaction and other frameworks that evade the complexity of human development.Wholeness and purpose are concepts that include but also go beyond well-being that should be addressed by educators.Originality/Value:Most of the criticisms of the new well-being agenda in educational policies and research simply assume its status as a summum bonum for human development.This essay acknowledges the importance of well-being but expands beyond it to define wholeness and purpose as an alternative set of constructs with their own independent integrity that should not simply be subsumed into current well-being agendas.

Organizational Change in Schools

Purpose:This review aims to discuss the meaning of organizational change,change dynamics,and the current state of debates on organizational change in schools.The core purpose of this review is not only to restate the literature on organizational change in schools but also to challenge the current theoretical understanding of change in schools by rising the new perspectives on change in schools.Design/Approach/Methods:As part of this effort,we discuss the dominant perspectives of change,forces of change,and illustrate the interventions adopted by different school systems to deal with the need of change.Findings:The literature on change in schools suggests that,parallel to the change intervention in other organizational settings,largely fail.Falling short of intended goals in change interventions is not a simple methodological problem but rather an ontological issue of how we perceive change and organization.Parallel to the arguments in the literature,continuous change has been indicated as an alternative perspective to planned change.Finally,leadership has been indicated as a key driver of organizational change.Originality/Value:The review discusses applicability of continuous change and elaborate on alternative leadership approaches to guide continuous change in schools.

De-schooling Well-being: Toward a Learning-Oriented Definition

Purpose:(1)Critique conventional schooling as detrimental to student well-being and learning.(2)Articulate an alternative that is more conducive to learning and well-being in classrooms,schools,and educational systems.Design/Approach/Methods:I review the historical functions of compulsory schooling,the main critiques to conventional schooling developed over the past century,emerging knowledge on the neuroscience of learning and well-being,and cases of large-scale pedagogical transformation from the Global South.Findings:I argue that conventional schooling is detrimental to well-being,that deep learning is a precursor of well-being,and that compulsory schooling is not designed to cultivate it.Well-being has to be de-schooled so that students thrive in schools:The grammar of schooling has to be replaced with the language of learning.This requires deep and widespread cultural change,and some movements of pedagogical renewal from the Global South offer important lessons on how to accomplish this.Originality/Value:Expanding the scope of existing debates about student well-being by questioning the assumption that compulsory schooling is inherently good and pointing out that unless the default culture of schooling is replaced with cultures of robust learning,student well-being efforts will simply reproduce the very problems they seek to solve.