The Annual Condition of Education Report, 2013

The 2031 edition of the Annual Condition of Education Report provides a rich tapestry of information about Iowa's Education system. The data presented in the report examines longitudinal trends about our students, our teacher and our schools from many perspectives. Information such as demographic characteristics, assessment results, college readiness, college readiness measures, courses taken, and financial health are just a few examples, Below are highlights from the 24th edition of the report.

Graduate Education at Iowa. Spring 2012.

Newsletter for alumni from the University of Iowa Graduate College.

Graduate Education at Iowa. Fall 2012.

Newsletter for alumni from the University of Iowa Graduate College.

Graduate Education at Iowa. Spring 2013.

Newsletter for alumni from the University of Iowa Graduate College.

Graduate Education at Iowa. Fall 2013.

Newsletter for alumni from the University of Iowa Graduate College.

Public health education in Europe: old and new challenges

The purpose of this article is to discuss some of the current challenges faced by European schools of public health. Perhaps most remarkable on the continent is the diversity, the magnitude, and the rapidity of the developments in public health education since the Second World War. This article discusses its evolution, its main characteristics and the underlying rationale with several examples. Further, it addresses specific aspects of the future development, namely the collaboration of academic schools with practice-oriented institutions, as well as the interactions between the constituent disciplines of public health. The Bologna process on post-graduate education in Europe has had an important impact on the overall design of most schools. There is a willingness to develop public health in each country of the European region and there is a need to develop common strategies to reach high standards in teaching, training and researching in all disciplines related to public health.

The european higher education area at work: Lights and shadows defining continuous assessment

The aim of this paper is to analyse how learning assessment, particularly the Continuous Assessment system, has been defined in the Public Administration and Management Diploma Course of the University of Barcelona (Spain). This course was a pioneering experiment at this university in implementing the guidelines of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), and thus represents a good case study for verifying whether one of the cornerstones of the EHEA has been accomplished with success. Using data obtained from the Teaching Plans elaborated by the lecturers of each subject, we are able to establish that the CA system has been progressively accepted to such an extent that it is now the assessment formula used by practically all of the lecturers, conforming in this way to the protocols laid down by the Faculty of Law in which this diploma course is taught. Nevertheless, we find that high dispersion exists in how Continuous Assessment is actually defined. Indeed, it seems that there is no unified view of how Continuous Assessment should be performed. This dispersion, however, seems to diminish over time and raises some questions about the advisability of agreement on criteria, considering the potential which CA has as a pedagogical tool. Moreover, we find that the Unique Assessment system, which students may also apply for, is an option chosen only by a minority, with lecturers usually defining it as merely a theoretical and/or practical test, of little innovation in relation to traditional tests.

The Arts (Music, Arts&Crafts and Drama) as a procedure for learning pre-school content: Grupo Edebé Project

There is nothing as amazing and fascinating as children learning process. Between 0 and 6 years old, a child brain develops in a waythat will never be repeated. At this age, children are eager to discover and they have great potential of active and affective life.Because of this, their learning capacity in this period is incalculable. (Jordan-Decarbo y Nelson, 2002; Wild, 1999).Pre-school Education is a unique and special stage, with self identity, which aims are:attending children as a whole,motivate them to learn,give them an affective and stable environment in which they can grow up and get to be balanced and confident people and inwhich they can relate to others, learn, enjoy and be happy.Arts, Music, Visual Arts and Drama (Gardner, 1994) can provide a framework of special, even unique, personal expression.With the aim of introducing qualitative improvements in the education of children and to ensure their emotional wellbeing, and havingnoticed that teachers had important needs and concerns as regards to diversity in their student groups, we developed a programbased on the detection of needs and concerns explained by professionals in education.This program of Grupo edebé, object of our research, is a multicultural, interdisciplinary and globalizing project the aims of which are:developing children's talent and personality,keeping their imagination and creativity and using these as a learning resource,promoting reasoning, favouring expression and communication,providing children with the tools to manage their emotions,and especially, introducing Arts as a procedure to increase learning.We wanted to start the research by studying the impact (Brice, 2003) that this last point had on the learning of five-year-old childrenschooled in multicultural environments.Therefore, the main goal of the research was the assessment of the implementation of a child education programme attending todiversity in a population of five-year-old children, specifically in the practice of procedures based on the use of Arts (music, arts andcrafts and theatre) as a vehicle or procedure for learning contents in Pre-school stage.Because children emotional welfare was a subject of our concern, and bearing in mind that the affective aspects are of vitalimportance for learning and child development (Parke and Gauvain, 2009), Grupo Edebé has also evaluated the starting, evolving andfinal impact in five-year-old children given that they finish Pre-school education at that age.

Radiation protection education and training in several ionising radiation applications

Ionising radiation (IR) applications are quiet common among several areas of knowledge, medicine or industry. Medical X-rays, Nuclear Medicine, Xrays used in non-destructive testing or applications in research are a few examples. These radiations originate from radioactive materials or radiation emitting devices. Radiation Protection education and training (E&T) is of paramount importance to work safely in areas that imply the use of IR. TheTechnical Unit for Radiation Protection at the University of Barcelona has anextensive expertise in basic, initial and refresher training, in general or specificareas, as well as in courses validated by the Spanish Nuclear Safety Council orto satisfy specific needs with bespoke courses. These specific customer needsare evaluated and on-site courses can also be carried out.

Audit report on the Iowa Department of Education for the year ended June 30, 2013

Audit report on the Iowa Department of Education for the year ended June 30, 2013

The cave (La caverna -1952-1969) by Josep Palau i Fabre: theatre versus philosophical allegory in order both to perform and stop the tragic and dark end of the bright art of thinking

What is the use of representing in performance the image of the cave from book VII of Plato’s Republic? Josep Palau i Fabre considers that in Plato’s dialogues the speakers are mere instruments at the service of his dialectical purpose. The aim of this article is to show how, by turning the myth into a tragedy and relying on Heraclitus’s conflict or war of opposites, the playwright succeeds in favouring a sort of thought which is not one-sided or univocal. On the contrary, in Palau i Fabre’s La Caverna, the tragic hero, the released prisoner transformed by the light of Reality and finally killed by his “cavemates” –after having been imprisoned again and having tried to rescue them from their ignorance or shadows– still leaves them his powerful experience of the agonistikós thought, which might bear fruit in their life to come.

Do more educated leaders raise citizens’ education?

This paper looks at the contribution of political leaders to enhance citizens education and investigate how the educational attainment of the population is affected while a leader with higher education remains in office. For this purpose, we consider educational transitions of political leaders in office and find that the educational attainment of population increases when a more educated leader remains in office. Furthermore, we also observe that the educational attainment of the population is negatively impacted when a country transitions from an educated leader to a less educated one. This result may help to explain the previous finding that more educated political leaders favor economic growth. Key Words: Political leaders, Primary Education, School Achievement, Political institutions. JEL classification: I21,I25,I28.

Effects of math anxiety on student success in higher education

This study examines whether math anxiety and negative attitudes toward mathematics have an effect on university students" academic achievement in a methodological course forming part of their degree. A total of 193 students were presented with a math anxiety test and some questions about their enjoyment, self-confidence and motivation regarding mathematics, and their responses were assessed in relation to the grades they had obtained during continuous assessment on a course entitled"Research Design". Results showed that low performance on the course was related to math anxiety and negative attitudes toward mathematics. We suggest that these factors may affect students" performance and should therefore be taken into account in attempts to improve students" learning processes in methodological courses of this kind.