From its inception, the Center for Gifted Education at William & Mary has been committed to the education of gifted students. Dr. Joyce VanTassel-Baska, founder of the CFGE, created a learning environment to work directly with gifted students and parents by providing diverse university-based pre-collegiate programs in both residential and…

This article shares principles for offering effective professional development for classroom teachers at historic sites and museums, identified through ongoing research at the Thomas Jefferson Foundation (TJF). Supported by an IMLS National Leadership Grant, the initial findings challenged the education staff to more fully embrace their roles as…

Many talented students in under-resourced schools do not reach their full potential. Research shows that by sixth grade, children born into poverty have likely spent 6,000 fewer hours learning than their middle-class counterparts. Higher Achievement, an intensive summer and after-school program, aims to close that learning gap. It offers…

This article reports on a specific case of the READ Center--a community-based literacy organization (CBLO) in Richmond, Virginia--and its attempt to develop promotional materials that will encourage low-literate adults to enroll in literacy programs. The article also offers insight on how literacy organizations may utilize the practical experience…

This paper looks critically at the Responsive Classroom (RC) program, a social/emotional learning program used ubiquitously in elementary schools for teacher and student training, in the US as well as in Australia, the UK, and other parts of Western Europe. The paper examines empirical studies on RC's efficacy and outcomes, many of which were…

In this article, teacher education faculty of a medium-size university, historically grounded in teacher preparation within a rural context, describe their ongoing work to transform their practice in order to prepare special and general educators who co-plan, co-teach, and co-assess with their counterparts in the field. Follow-up research with…

Grounded as a self-study using arts-based inquiry to explore the experiences of six university faculty members participating in a cross-disciplinary faculty development program, the purpose of this paper is to (1) describe the Madison Research Fellows (MRF) program, and (2) explore the impact of the MRF program. Participating members included…

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to determine the impact of synchronous online tutoring services on struggling middle school students' mathematics achievement. The online tutoring was provided as a response to intervention (RTI) Tier 3 support (intensive, individualized intervention) in schools implementing a school-wide mathematics…

The impact of length of the match and age of the child was evaluated in a site-based mentoring program. At-risk children ranging in age from 7 to 12 were matched with an adult mentor and met approximately once a week at school during the academic year. Results indicated that neither the length of the match nor the age of the child influenced the…

During the 2010-2011 school year, Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) piloted the After-School Global Language Opportunity Benefiting All Learners (GLOBAL) program for 12 weeks at eight different school sites. This school year the program expanded to 25 weeks and 11 sites. GLOBAL is an approach to learning that allows students to develop basic…

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…

This dissertation explores the long-term influence of the SPARK Program (Shore People Advancing Readiness for Knowledge) on the environmental attitudes of some of its alumni. SPARK was designed for parents and their preschool children who live in a rural area on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. The main goal of this program is to provide…

The term "assessment" sends shivers down academic spines. For faculty, it signals marching orders from external parties who may or may not appreciate the subtle and not always quantifiable value of faculty efforts. For administrators, it means the dual challenge of recalibrating internal measures to meet external mandates but also…

Education traditionally has been defined as a one-way relationship between teacher and learner. However, new technologies are dramatically changing that relationship in a multitude of ways. In this article, the authors describe some of these changes and explore one example of the intersection between technology and pedagogy, describing a college…

Background: School-based interventions are critical for enhancing the health of youth. The "Goals for Health (GFH)" school-based project was a goal-setting and life-skills intervention conducted in rural areas to increase self-efficacy, knowledge, and positive behaviors related to healthy eating. The intervention was peer-led with high…