In 2006, six community and technical colleges in Washington State joined the innovative national reform initiative called Achieving the Dream (ATD). This report describes the progress each college made in implementing ATD's "culture of evidence" principles for institutional improvement, examines strategies implemented by the colleges to…

Research on the use of knowledge resources in school improvement efforts explores the ways in which new ideas, programs, practices, materials, and technologies become incorporated into the operations of the nation's elementary and secondary schools, and examines the changes these organizations undergo in the process. Attempts at disseminating…

Ways of implementing educational innovations produced by research into practice in the schools are considered. It is stated that the most effective tool for accomplishing this is inservice teacher education. The characteristics of an exemplary inservice teacher education program are outlined and discussed. The suggestion is made that teacher…

A program designed to adapt educational research findings to practical classroom use is described. A variety of options for adapting research through inservice education are described. They include formal university courses after school, released time programs, one to one and small group consultations, independent study, graduate research theses,…

An overview is presented of the background and proceedings of a conference planned to share information on dissemination and utilization research conducted by National Institute of Education sponsored projects in educational laboratories and R&D centers in order to form a community among those who share similar research objectives and problems.…

This is a rationale and description for a dissemination program being developed by the School Practice and Service Division of the National Institute of Education. The document is being circulated to solicit comments on the soundness of the proposed work. The proposed program constitutes a coordinated attempt to make information, products, skills,…

The first two papers in this collection introduce both the Research and Development Exchange (RDx) itself and the subsequent contracted papers in this and a companion volume. The first paper discusses the general problems toward which the RDx effort is directed, understandings and assumptions affecting the design of the work, principles guiding…

The Interstate Project on Dissemination specified four components as critical for a successful state information dissemination system: linkage, information, incentive, and management. An analysis of Pennsylvania's system, using this Project as a referent, uncovered several problems: (1) the linkage component was not functioning; (2) local…

This volume contains one paper defining the initial operating parameters of the Research and Development Exchange (RDx) and four of a series of papers contracted for the program. The overview paper touches on a variety of topics of continuing concern: the general problems toward which the RDx effort is directed, understandings affecting the design…

Papers designed to help build multidisciplinary training networks for rural development are collected in this document, an outgrowth of a regional training workshop attended by participants from Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Thailand, and India. The six papers deal with the objectives of the workshop which were to:…