Through partnerships with four other state agencies, the LifeTech Institute was designed to provide life skills and technical workforce skills to male parolees. The purpose was to alleviate prison overcrowding, reduce recidivism rates, and prepare a trained workforce to supplement the demanding workforce needs of the state's construction industry.…

Just 1 percent of East Carolina University undergraduates study overseas. But thanks to a pair of enterprising faculty members, a growing number of students are having international experiences without ever leaving the Greenville, North Carolina campus. The university's Global Understanding program uses inexpensive and relatively unsophisticated…

A challenging intercultural teaching experience provided an opportunity for engaging embodied pedagogies that facilitated border crossings of language, age, gender, and experience. Influenced by the work of Augusto Boal, the author describes how improvisation, role-play, music, and drawing led seminary students in Mexico into sacred time and space…

Outreach occurs systemwide at Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County (PLCMC). All branches are involved in reaching their surrounding neighborhoods and patrons. Under the guidance of the outreach manager, the outreach department provides support for these efforts and also offers focused programming via 12 staff members. The department is…

Thinking green is normal for the current generation of high school students, who have always had recycling bins in their classrooms and green themes in their assemblies, their lessons, and their television shows. It follows that sophisticated, multidisciplinary programs are now operating in schools throughout the country to educate students about…

This article describes four teacher education programs and their student teachers' responses to why some students in their classrooms were not doing well. The responses and programs fell into two categories: education for replication of inequities and education for transformation. If teacher education programs want their prospective teachers to be…

The assessment-related activities of academic development units (ADU) are driven not only by institutional initiatives and the pursuit of particular research interests but also by less predictable factors including the emerging needs of faculty members and external funding opportunities. When not located within a strong classification framework,…

In this article, the authors relate a story about the transformative power of technologies for voice. They relate Brian Kajiyama's personal odyssey--what might be described as a journey from unvoiced to vocal--in learning to use a DynaWrite, a type-and-talk device that Brian uses as a communication tool.

Bringing history home, an elementary history curriculum and professional development project, began in 2001. As originally conceived, the project's main purpose was to move history from the margins described by Bruce VanSledright into the mainstream of the K-5 school day. Seven years later, the Bringing History Home (BHH) instructional units are…

At most universities a student typically goes to a bookstore to purchase the textbook recommended by the professor for a course. The student may choose to purchase a new or used textbook, or, as occurs more frequently now, an e-textbook. Nearly 40% of college students choose not to purchase textbooks at all, however, due to the costs. Generally,…

Many high school teachers and administrators think that reading instruction belongs in the lower grades. But according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, only 31% of eighth graders read at or above the proficient level, which means that many are entering high school unprepared for its advanced textbook reading and language…

Rupture resistance is a measure of the strength of a soil to withstand an applied stress or resist deformation. In soil survey, during routine soil descriptions, rupture resistance is described for each horizon or layer in the soil profile. The lower portion of the rupture resistance classes are assigned based on rupture between thumb and…

Oregon State University (OSU) libraries, where the author serves as lead programmer, have developed a tool to make it easier for librarians to build and maintain interactive course assignment pages (ICAPs) and subject research guides (SRGs). That tool, Library a la Carte, enables librarians with minimal technical expertise to create dynamic…

There is significant interest around the world in all issues involving the recruitment and retention of students in mathematics and sciences at all levels. Because of this there is great need for programmes that focus on providing well-prepared and effective teachers of mathematics and science at all levels. In this article, we present sample…

This paper outlines the role that Forest School can play in children's development. With over 100 Forest Schools in England, 20 in Scotland and 20 in Wales, this concept is growing across Britain. Forest School involves children having regular contact with woodland over an extended period of time; it allows them to become familiar, and have…