Supporting college and career readiness among youth who encounter significant academic and life challenges requires innovative strategies to help them envision their futures, leverage their strengths and develop dispositions that promote positive trajectories. For youth development professionals who develop and implement novel programmatic…

Portland State University's (PSU) reputation as an engaged, urban-serving university continues to distinguish it both nationally and locally. Key partnerships with local, public, and private partners provide students, faculty, and staff with remarkable opportunities to contribute to the physical, social, and economic development of the Portland…

Teacher preparation plays a critical role in ensuring that teachers are prepared to lead and impact student learning from the first day they are responsible for student learning. The best way to ensure that every teacher is "profession-ready" from their first day as a teacher-of-record is for preparation programs to incorporate teacher…

Many undergraduates are interested in community-based programming, but at most land-grants undergraduates have little contact with Extension. This article describes a grant project that developed two undergraduate courses about Extension and community-based, experiential education. The academic-year course incorporates lecture, discussion, guest…

To engage recipients of Extension science-based video programming involves understanding what behaviors and decisions the recipients may be considering that can be affected by the programming. Such understanding may be developed through interviews, focus groups, and surveys, which should provide guidance for elements of the style and content of…

In January 2007, the Oregon State Board of Education mandated a new Oregon diploma that strengthened high school graduation requirements with the aim of improving student readiness for college and career. Among the major changes was a requirement that students demonstrate proficiency in nine "essential skills" that included the…

This article reviews the contributions of the Oregon Resiliency Project, an effort to enhance positive social-emotional development of children and youth through social and emotional learning (SEL). The project was launched in 2001 as a collaborative effort between faculty and graduate student researchers at the University of Oregon. The primary…

Although a growing body of research points to the critical need to foster reading, writing, speaking, and critical thinking skills for students in order to ensure their success in college, careers, and life, these efforts have tended to focus more on developing literacy skills in the early years, often ignoring secondary students. The outcome has…

Portland Community College has a firmly rooted career and technical education (CTE) partnership with its service area high schools. However, the partnership was continuing to operate as it had for many years. Given the rapid pace of change in the region's workforce, Oregon's secondary and postsecondary educational initiatives, and a shared…

In this technical report, data are presented on the predictive and concurrent relation between various student demographic variables (gender, race/ethnicity, special education status, Title 1 status, English language learning status, and economic disadvantage) and three reading easyCBMs (passage reading fluency, vocabulary, and multiple-choice…

Developing evaluation capacity in organizations is a complex and multifaceted task. This article outlines a framework for building evaluation capacity. The framework is based on four strategic methods for teaching evaluation: (a) using logic models for sound program planning, (b) providing one-on-one help, (c) facilitating small-team collaborative…

An evaluation of Oregon's professional technical education and work force programs was conducted through examination of handbooks for high school and community colleges, secondary education enrollment reports, state employment division documents, Workforce 2000 applications, and interim and final reports on professional technical education and…

The Rural Early Intervention Training Project in Oregon is designed to meet the need for rural early intervention personnel. The program reflects a focus on technical skills, critical thinking, and reflective practice. University professors travel to a designated rural community to conduct coursework each month, and a practicum supervisor observes…

A regional approach to offering vocational education in Douglas County, Oregon, had been discussed for many years. In 1984, a feasibility study was conducted to determine whether such a regional approach would be possible in the county and to establish vocational programs determined as high priority in the feasibility study. Through discussions…

The focus of a summative evaluation of the Promising Practices Diffusion Project was on soliciting descriptions and views of several different groups about project operation and merit and comparing the "ideal" model against what had taken place so far. Preliminary activities involved review of the project-developed Implementation Kit for…