Continuum Planning for Educational Change: Putting People and Their Contexts First

This is a valuable resource for educational change practitioners worldwide who are responsible at any level for the planning, implementation and monitoring of changes within an institution. This book will be of value to educational change practitioners worldwide who are responsible at any level for the planning and/or implementation and/or monitoring of changes within an institution, a locality or a region.These will include: regional, provincial, city or district level educational planners and administrators tasked with leading the implementation of national educational change policy in their area; leaders/heads of department in educational institutions at all levels who are responsible for planning and monitoring the implementation of in their institutional/departmental environment; and, classroom teachers interested in finding out how a change process in which they are participating might be better managed and supported, and how they could help themselves to cope with it better.These also include: trainers/teacher educators who are responsible for planning, designing and teaching courses intended to introduce classroom teachers and/or educational administrators to the rationale for, and implications for practice of, a national educational change; and, staff in government departments or NGOs worldwide who are responsible for making decisions about funding and/or planning and/or implementing educational aid initiatives, or for training staff who (are going to) lead/work on such initiatives. Review "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"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 About the Author Martin Wedell is Senior Lecturer and Head of International Education at the University of Leeds, UK.