Books in the Rethinking Higher Education series

In a context in which explicit attention to the curriculum has been sidelined in universities' strategy, this book makes an argument for why curriculum matters, both in understanding the effects of unbundled online learning and more broadly. It takes up two particular curriculum issues which are amplified in an unbundled context: differences in the formulation of curriculum between disciplines and professional fields, and the extent these are recognised in university strategy; and the push for constructivist pedagogies, and its effects on curriculum construction. Since the onslaught of MOOCs in 2012, unbundled forms of online learning offered via partnerships with external online program management and MOOC providers have grown significantly across the university sector. There has been much debate about the implications of these partnerships but the focus has predominantly been on the engagement of students and their learning. This book takes a different and novel approach, looking instead at the effects on curriculum and knowledge.Drawing on selected case studies, the book reflects on how university leaders and academics engaged with MOOCs and other forms of unbundled online learning in the early 2010s, and the effects of these reforms on curriculum practice. It captures in detail the complex and difficult work involved in university curriculum making in a way rarely seen in discussions of higher education. And it generates new in-sights about some of the critical problems manifest in the ongoing moves to embrace unbundled online learning today.

This book analyzes stories of university early childhood faculty members, community activists in southern California, and children and the early childhood teacher education students working with them. The grounding of this research is reconceptualization of postmodern narrative theoretical influences. Through narrative inquiry, the book connects ongoing research to ongoing pedagogy. It explores the following research questions: (1) How do learners across generations create, build upon, and reinvent each other's stories to make new meanings through consideration of family history, multigenerational knowledge, and experiences?; (2) How do learners' stories offer new possibilities through leadership that connects Global South knowledge with Global North contexts?; (3) In what ways is it possible to use this framework and methodology in Higher Education to promote systemic consistency in promoting social justice that is generatively inclusive?More than half of the research participants have truly lived bi-culturally, many of the children in the early care and education programs in the USA are from Mexico and Central America. These collaborators truly carry their roots with them as they strive for justice and authenticity in early childhood teacher education and community activists working with families and children.

This book analyzes stories of university early childhood faculty members, community activists in southern California, and children and the early childhood teacher education students working with them.

This book examines the restructuring of universities on the basis of neoliberal models, and provides a vision of the practice of hope in higher education as a means to counteract this new reality.