How has Japan become a major economic power, a world leader in the automotive and electronics industries? What is the secret of their success? The consensus has been that, though the Japanese are not particularly innovative, they are exceptionally skilful at imitation, at improving products that already exist. But now two leading Japanese business experts, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hiro Takeuchi, turn this conventional wisdom on its head: Japanese firms are successful, they contend, precisely because they are innovative, because they create new knowledge and use it to produce successful products and technologies. Examining case studies drawn from such firms as Honda, Canon, Matsushita, NEC, 3M, GE, and the U.S. Marines, this book reveals how Japanese companies translate tacit to explicit knowledge and use it to produce new processes, products, and services.

The knowledge-creating company : how Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation

The power of feedback.

A detailed review of the education sector in Australia as in the data provided by the 2006 edition of the OECD's annual publication, 'Education at a Glance' is presented. While the data has shown that in almost all OECD countries educational attainment levels are on the rise, with countries showing impressive gains in university qualifications, it also reveals that a large of share of young people still do not complete secondary school, which remains a baseline for successful entry into the labour market.

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Education at a Glance

by Linda Darling-Hammond, New York, NY, Teacher’s College Press, 2010, 394 pp., £20.91 (paperback), ISBN 978-0-8077-4962-3 In The flat world and education: how America’s commitment to equity will d...

The flat world and education: how America’s commitment to equity will determine our future

This study presents a large-scale systematic review of the literature on the flipped classroom, with the goals of examining its reported advantages and challenges for both students and instructors, and to note potentially useful areas of future research on the flipped model's in and out-of-class activities. The full range of Social Sciences Citation Indexed journals was surveyed through the Web of Science site, and a total of 71 research articles were selected for the review. The findings reveal that the most frequently reported advantage of the flipped classroom is the improvement of student learning performance. We also found a number of challenges in this model. The majority of these are related to out-of-class activities, such as much reported inadequate student preparation prior to class. Several other challenges and the numerous advantages of the flipped classroom are discussed in detail. We then offer suggestions for future research on flipped model activities.

The flipped classroom: A review of its advantages and challenges

https://www.hogeschoolrotterdam.nl/contentassets/399d77e3f44642dcb222b4c4a4e9af64/schildkamp-en-kuiper-2010.pdf

Data-informed curriculum reform: Which data, what purposes, and promoting and hindering factors.

https://ris.utwente.nl/ws/files/6955218/1-s2.0-S1747938X15000652-main.pdf

A systematic review of prerequisites for implementing assessment for learning in classroom practice

1. Introduction.- 2. Data-based Decision Making: an overview.- 3. Analysis and Discussion of Classroom and Achievement Data to Raise Student Achievement.- 4. From "Intuition"- to "Data"-Driven Decision Making in Dutch Secondary Schools?.- 5. Professional Attitudes to the Use of Data in England.- 6. Approaches to Effective Data Use: Does One Size Fit All?.- 7. Improving Data Literacy in Schools: Lessons from the School Feedback Project.- 8. Implementation of a Data Initiative in the NCLB era.- 9. Towards Data-informed Decisions: from ministry policy to school practice.- 10. Conclusions and a Data Use Framework.- 11. Data Use: Where to from here?.- Index.

Data-based decision making in education: challenges and opportunities

The use of data for educational decision making has never been more prevalent. However, teachers and school leaders need support in data use. Support can be provided by means of professional development in the form of “data teams”. This study followed the functioning of 4 data teams over a period of 2 years, applying a qualitative case study design. The findings show that data use is not a linear process, and that teams go through different feedback loops to reach higher levels of depth of inquiry. The data team procedure is a promising way of enhancing data-based decision making in schools.

Data teams for school improvement

Background: Data-based decision making can lead to increased student achievement; however, schools struggle with the implementation of data-based decision making. Professional development in the use of data is therefore urgently needed. However, professional development is often ineffective in terms of improving the knowledge, skills, and attitude of the receiver.

Purpose: We need a more fundamental understanding of how we can increase the effectiveness of data-use-related professional development. This study therefore focuses on the factors influencing a professional development intervention for data-based decision making: the data team procedure. Data teams are teams of teachers and school leaders who collaboratively learn how to use data, following a structured approach and guided by a facilitator from the university. Based on an extensive literature review, we developed a data use framework in which the use of data is influenced by data characteristics, school organization characteristics, and user and team characteristics. 

Research Design: We conducted case studies. 

Data Collection: We focused on observing in depth the factors that influence the work of the data teams and interviewing the data team members about these factors. Four data teams of six schools for upper secondary education were followed over a period of 2 years. We observed and analyzed 34 meetings and analyzed 23 interviews, combined with our field notes. Although this pilot study only permits analytical generalization of the findings, the findings provide more in-depth insight into the factors that enable and hinder interventions, focusing on supporting collaborative data use in schools. 

Findings: The results show that several data characteristics (access and availability of high-quality data), school organizational characteristics (a shared goal, leadership, training and support, involvement of relevant stakeholders), and individual and team characteristics (data literacy, pedagogical content knowledge [PCK], organizational knowledge, attitude, and collaboration) influence the use of data in data teams. The results also show that these influencing factors are interrelated. 

Conclusions: Schools need support in all aspects of the use of data (from formulation of a problem definition to taking action based on the data). This study can form a starting point for larger studies into the factors influencing these types of professional development interventions to ensure effective implementation and sustainability.

Kim Schildkamp

Papers

Data-informed curriculum reform: Which data, what purposes, and promoting and hindering factors.

A systematic review of prerequisites for implementing assessment for learning in classroom practice

Data-based decision making in education: challenges and opportunities

Data teams for school improvement

Factors Influencing the Functioning of Data Teams.