Research on higher education community engagement (HECE) rarely places university or institutional voices in conversation with the community partners' voices. Boundary-spanning frameworks such as Weerts and Sandmann's (2010) for universities and Adams's (2014) for community partners help boundary spanners, but such models draw boundaries between…

Innovation in education is vital for responding to emerging challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and for building progress on longstanding challenges in schools. The infusion of substantial, highly flexible pots of federal relief dollars created an opportunity to pilot new programs and initiatives. Many states and districts opted to invest…

A former school superintendent who is now a university professor uses her experience in these partnership roles to describe how Kansas State University's collaboratively designed master's academy leadership preparation models merging theory and practice came about over fifteen years ago, and how it has evolved since then.

The purpose of this paper is to open the methods, construction and assumptions of a new performance benchmark to examination, critique, and improvement by technical experts. The paper begins with known technical questions about this new benchmark. In includes suggestions made by technical advisors. It then details the construction of the…

The primary objective of this development study was to develop and pilot a three-tiered prevention model (universal, targeted, individualized) in early education for children at risk of reading difficulties. The aims of this study were to: (1) Define and develop a Pre-3T model to address the early literacy and language needs of young children in…

This note from the field reviews the sustainability of an institution-wide program for adopting and adapting open and alternative educational resources (OAER) at Kansas State University (K-State). Developed in consult of open textbook initiatives at other institutions and modified around the needs and expectations of K-State students and faculty,…

This work shares a time-sensitive framework for teaching GIS to educators of all levels and disciplines. Existing relationships with teachers enabled the addition of GIS content in professional development activities. The amount of time devoted to GIS-related content varied depending on time made available for interaction with the audience.…

The purpose of this article is to share the history of one Professional Development School (PDS) partnership in an effort to help others reflect, set visions, and move forward into a new educational future. The emergence, development, and continuation of this partnership was dependent upon finding ways to create a growth-oriented environment,…

The 1983 publication of "A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform" (National Commission of Excellence in Education) "initiated the longest sustained period of attention to public education in the nation's history and ignited a new wave of interest in teacher preparation" (NRC, Committee on the Study of Teacher…

The qualitative study reported here assessed the needs of agents related to new agent professional development to improve the current model. Agents who participated in new agent professional development within the last 5 years were selected to participate in focus groups to determine concerns and continued needs. Agents enjoyed networking and…

Many undergraduate teacher education programs still treat technology as an elective, instead of an integral and inseparable part of the curriculum. So when "T.H.E. Journal" set out to find the best program for training tomorrow's teachers, it found one at a K-12 school district in Kansas. The Blue Valley School District in Overland Park,…

Students with intellectual disability are often served in community-based services to promote effective adult outcomes in employment, community inclusion, and independent living (Gaumer, Morningstar & Clark (2004). "Beyond High School" (Wehmeyer, Garner, Lawrence, Yeager, & Davis, 2006), a multi-stage model to promote student…

School leadership matters when discussing teacher effectiveness and student performance, and preparation programs need to graduate principals with the skills necessary to lead schools for tomorrow. The traditional approach to preparing educational leaders is no longer getting the job done. In this article, Meija, Devin and Calvert, students who…

Considering how long societies have been educating their youth, the history of teacher education is relatively brief. From the first teacher education innovation in the 17th century through those of the late 20th century--de la Salle, the American normal school, the flood of student teachers into public schools after World War II, the student…

The need to build a more robust workforce development pipeline is evident in the hundreds of thousands of job openings in our nation's advanced manufacturing industry. Rapid technological change has created a severe skills gap, compounded by a pending wave of retirements due to the aging of the workforce. These challenges are particularly…