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…

The purpose of this study was to formulate and conduct a needs assessment identifying which present factors may contribute to the implementation of a bilingual education program using Jamaican Sign Language and Jamaican Standard English (JEBE) at The Caribbean Christian Centre for the Deaf, a non-governmental school serving deaf children in…

This article describes the experiences of one Minnesota middle school that implemented a year-long integrated STEM program with the cooperation of graduate student fellows from a local university. The authors, two of whom were among the graduate students involved in the project, describe their impressions of the program, share some lessons they…

PhD programs in the United States are increasingly marked by the rising influence of market-oriented dynamics. As a case in point, one of the primary objectives of the new PhD program offered at the University of South Dakota is to deliver a doctoral program through a flexible--or hybrid--format that is accessible to nontraditional as well as…

This report describes the eLearning Fellowship Program at the University of Jos (UNIJOS), first introduced in October 2008 through a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and recently adopted by the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa (PHEA) Educational Technology Initiative (ETI). The fellowship is a one-year program aimed at…

Retention and graduation rates for engineering disciplines are significantly lower than desired, and research literature offers many possible causes. Engineering learning communities provide the opportunity to study relationships among specific causes and to develop and evaluate activities designed to lessen their impact. This paper details an…

The following profiles address the basic decisions and actions that state education policy-makers--in the state departments of education, unless otherwise noted--are taking to foster successful statewide implementation of the new standards and aligned assessments in 15 states. These profiles provide a descriptive overview of each state's…

Response to Intervention (RTI), an approach to systematically addressing the needs of struggling students, has been used primarily at the elementary school level. However, both its intent and its elements can also be used successfully in high schools. This "Informed Educator" describes what RTI is, as well as what it is not, highlights core…

This article describes the design and development of a professional development program based upon research on the competencies necessary for online teaching success conducted at Penn State University in 2009-2010. The article highlights how the results of this research are being aligned with various professional development courses comprising the…

In most parts of the world today, the goal of providing all children with free and Universal Primary Education (UPE) has received broad national and international support and some educational systems have evolved from predominantly "fee-charging" towards "fee-free" status in recent times. In Ghana, for example, the endorsement…

This article describes successes and challenges of the first implementation of an online Ed.D. program that impacted students' professional growth and practice. Based on an analysis of student survey comments, student interviews, and faculty interviews at the end of the first year, program improvements were made for future cohorts. Lessons learned…

Basic education is universal education, which aims to improve the basic quality of a nation's people. In the three decades since reform and opening up, earth-shaking changes have taken place in the quality of China's basic education. This article describes the path of development and changes in China's basic education over the past thirty years…

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill undertook faculty development activities to increase awareness of community-engaged scholarship through campus dialogue and by assisting faculty members in acquiring skills for community-engaged scholarship. This article presents a case report describing activities and their impact. The activities…

The purpose for this study was to use the "KSH analytic framework" as a tool to provide insight into the organizational change process that, when considered, might result in lasting and significant school change. In this qualitative multi-case study of two urban comprehensive high schools, the researcher not only described the initiation and…

Inquiry-guided learning (IGL) has widespread appeal in higher education as a suite of teaching strategies that promotes learning through students' increasingly independent investigation of questions, problems, and issues using the methods of inquiry of the disciplines. Framed as especially appropriate for research universities, IGL has been…