Planning for Educational Change: Putting people and their contexts first

Description

This book highlights the current ideas about the what, why and how of educational change and what these suggest about the essential issues that change policy makers and planners need to consider. It analyses international case studies of change initiatives to illustrate how the change process can be affected when such issues are insufficiently acknowledged or ignored. Finally the book introduces a number of key questions for educational change practitioners to consider when they find themselves responsible for the planning and/or implementation and/or monitoring of changes within an institution, a locality or a region. Educational change scenarios, from change within a single institution to local implementation of a national change, are used to show how answers to these questions can help change planners to closely match their implementation processes to their local contextual realities.

Martin Wedell is Senior Lecturer and Head of International Education at the University of Leeds, UK.

"The author's first-hand experience and understanding of the field makes "Planning for Educational Change" a very practice-oriented but also theoretically well-informed handbook. It provides a wealth of background information, real-life case studies and "worked examples" concerned with showing, in very down-to-earth and detailed terms, how to bring about effective reform in a range of typical ELT situations. As such, it fills an important gap, and will be of considerable benefit to anyone involved in such innovations, and, indeed, in any aspect of educational change in any subject area, especially cross- culturally." Dr Alan Waters, Senior Lecturer, Lancaster University, November 2008 "Planning for Educational Change brilliantly integrates the theory and practice of educational change. Starting with a concise and clearly condensed account of the theory of planned change, Wedell proceeds to illuminate the theory of change with several case studies. His juxtaposition of actual cases, and "Questions to consider" is a beautiful device for bringing the theory of change alive. On top of that he furnishes some very good answers and directions for approaching large scale change. Martin Wedell's ideas will greatly increase the odds for accomplishing successful educational reform." Michael Fullan, Professor Emeritus at OISE/University of Toronto, and Special Adviser on Education to the Premier of Ontario, December 2008