A collaborative team of faculty from The University of Akron (UA) in Akron, Ohio, and Kent State University (KSU) in Kent, Ohio, were awarded a federal grant from the U.S. Department of Education to develop a specialty area in the graduate speech-language pathology (SLP) programs of UA and KSU that would train a total of 32 SLP students (trainees)…

One serious purpose of the Program Development Committee is to share ideas about education with Association for Childhood Education International (ACEI) Branches around the world. Benefits of sharing ideas include: (1) Making connections with others who share interests, and thereby enrich and strengthen your ideas for helping children; and (2)…

The article examines a relatively new tool to increase the effectiveness of organizations and people. The recent development and background of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is reviewed. Basic assumptions of the model are discussed. Implications for departments and divisions of student affairs are analyzed. Finally, suggested readings and workshop…

Despite variable interpretations of the meaning and nature of specific effective practice methods and research-supported strategies, such approaches are generally considered essential for children and youth with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Indeed, there is general consensus that only by qualified professionals using effective methods in an…

Communities of practice (COPs) are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better through interacting with one another (Wenger 1998). Communities of practice have enormous potential to support and sustain quality care and education within a community and, in fact, are doing so. Businesses and…

This article details one university's efforts to develop graduate courses and programs to better serve the needs of the increasing non-traditional student population in underserved rural areas. A detailed overview is presented, along with the strategic planning outcomes achieved. We hope this article will initiate dialogue among higher education…

High school students with disabilities who drop out are costly to society. Compared to those who graduate, they are more likely to be unemployed, dependent on public services, and involved in the criminal justice system. Consequently, helping students with disabilities graduate has become a prominent national concern. Students with disabilities…

In this article, we discuss the development of online courses in higher education in terms of the in- structional quality and economic costs. In our conceptual analysis, we point out problems in developing online courses with sufficient quality due to limited funds being made available for online course development. Moreover, economic costs exist…

Preparing students in the early childhood field to work with children both with and without disabilities and to collaborate with different professionals is an important endeavor for colleges and universities. The purpose of this paper is to articulate a unique model of program collaboration between early childhood special education and early…

This article describes the creation of a fully online master's program for e-learning specialist training. This program is the first of its kind in Japan. As background information, Japan's general trends in e-learning are described, including activities of the e-Learning Consortium Japan and National Institute of Multimedia in Education. Such…

The Virtual University for Small States of the Commonwealth (VUSSC) was conceived by ministers at their triennial Conference of Commonwealth Ministers of Education in 2000. The Commonwealth of Learning was asked to investigate possible models, and presented a proposal to ministers at their next conference in 2003. The concept of a virtual…

Vocabulary is a pivotal component of a student's background knowledge, and the research indicates that vocabulary instruction can be an effective means for increasing it. This booklet describes the positive outcomes that result when a school- or district-wide vocabulary program is strategically developed and intentionally implemented. The…

Within Ethiopia's overall development strategy, the Integrated Women's Empowerment Programme (IWEP) aims to develop, test and implement a comprehensive nationwide approach to empower women and their households in selected areas of all regions/national states of Ethiopia. The programme provides functional literacy education and livelihood skills…

In Japan, environmental education partnerships among citizens, businesses and local government increased since new legislation was introduced in 2003, but there was little evidence of cross-sector collaboration until recently. Nagoya Open University of the Environment is a highly innovative, multi-sectoral citizen learning system founded in 2005…

In a FIPSE-funded assessment project, a group of diverse institutions collaborated on developing a common, course-embedded approach to assessing student writing in our first-year writing programs. The results of this assessment project, the processes we developed to assess authentic student writing, and individual institutional perspectives are…