New Titles at the OISE Library!

Here are some new acquisitions that we have at the OISE Library!

As millions of people around the world enrolled in hundreds of massive open online courses, the New York Times declared 2012 the “Year of the MOOC”. Since then, MOOCS have become game-changers in how we perceive and offer education, particularly at the post-secondary level. Universities across the world have joined in to offer courses on everything imaginable from music and literature to finance and computer science. In MOOC, Jonathan Haber analyzes the phenomenon’s rapid rise to popularity along with its equally rapid backlash which ranged from low return on investments for companies and high dropout rates for programs.

 Skills and Inequality: Partisan Politics and the Political Economy of Education Reforms in Western Welfare States discusses the ways in which particular policies in relation to general education, school-based vocational training, and dual apprenticeship systems create conditions that impact inequality and in turn lead to the creation of a welfare state. Marius R. Busemeyer looks at how different formations of capitalism affect the ways in which our political economy is structured and how this impacts the design of post-secondary education. This book features multiple case-studies and uses historical and current data analysis from Sweden, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

New teachers are excited and ambitious about making their mark and changing the lives of students. How can you become the best teacher possible and in what ways can you teach so that you are offering your students the very best that’s available to them and their learning as well as from you? In The Best Teacher in You: How to Accelerate Learning and Change Lives, the authors cover the ways in which seven teachers have gone beyond their training and their duties to create classrooms that are exciting, creative, and dynamic. The research spans six years and the authors identify four ways or “dimensions” of effective teaching that can help to transform classroom for both old and new teachers alike.

Another new acquisition that connects well with “The Best Teacher in You” is Creative Partnerships in Practice: Developing Creative Learners. This book uses case studies from the Creative Partnerships Programme, which is the largest school-based creative learning initiative in existence. Run by the Arts Council in England, the CP is a forefront leader in bringing arts, culture, and creativity to classrooms. This book highlights the achievements of the CP but is also a fantastic guide on how to implement creative learning within schools and how to use approaches such as sculpture, storytelling, film, or multimedia in the classroom.