This paper describes the development of a three-phase approach our team of educational developers finds useful in curriculum projects in our Teaching and Learning Centre. Informed by the literature on the importance of flexibility and iteration (Knight, 2001; Wolf, 2007) and an orientation towards Appreciative Inquiry (Srivastra & Cooperrider,…

In response to the need for a scalable, institutionally supported model of educational change, the Science Education Initiative (SEI) was created as an experiment in transforming course materials and faculty practices at two institutions--University of Colorado Boulder (CU) and University of British Columbia. We find that this departmentally…

Drawing on 60 qualitative interviews with Canada research chairs (CRCs), we explore their careers in context. We develop a model to understand the intersection of individual and institutional factors that shape the everyday experiences of the CRCs. The model shows the dialectical relationship between faculty identity, research, relations with…

This paper provides a review of the practices and tensions informing approaches to professional development for early career academic geographers who are teaching in higher education. We offer examples from Britain, Canada, Nigeria and the USA. The tensions include: institutional and departmental cultures; models that offer generic and…

Explores the process of horizontal differentiation by examining events leading to the establishment of 30 new departments in five universities. Two types of horizontal differentiation processes--administrative and academic--were observed and each was associated with different organizational conditions. (Author/IRT)

The bulk of this conference report is made up of three papers. In the first, J. A. Riffel argues that there are two polar orientations to the problem of evaluation in education--the independent empirical and the participatory problem-solving. To date, education has been dominated by the former approach. Only the latter allows for a variety of…

Policies and professionalism are discussed with reference to experiences in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Great Britain. A professional development policy is considered to be a prerequisite for inservice programs for academic staff, evaluation of academic performance, and career-related decisions. (Author/MLW)

The Ontario (Canada) Ministry of Education developed a six-stage evaluation model for local school districts that emphasized the values of involvement, communications, self-evaluation, cooperation, comprehensiveness, continuity, and coordination. The model includes the four components of people, purposes, programs, and products. The initiation and…

This document provides a brief history of urban school governance and summarizes some of the unique governance structures that have emerged in six American cities and one Canadian province over recent years. By 1920, ward-based systems in most urban areas had given way to systems with a high degree of centralization. These systems were more…

This paper describes an evaluation model developed by the Ontario Ministry of Education and illustrates how it was adapted to meet local and provincial needs of the Scarborough School System for accountability data and direction for change. The basic Cooperative Evaluation and Development of School Systems (CEDSS) model includes five stages of…