Background: Research shows that students who are overrepresented when it comes to failure are underrepresented when it comes to being taught by highly qualified teachers who are well prepared to teach students from diverse backgrounds. Teacher education, as one aspect of the educational system, plays a critical role in preparing teachers with the…

The Ohio Department of Education created Early Learning Content Standards in 2004 for children aged three to five grounded in research in the content areas of math, science, social studies and English/Language Arts. This mixed method study was designed to examine the perceptions of preschool teachers as they aligned the early learning content…

When the University of North Dakota began working to improve general education, two concerns were recognized. The first issue, which faculty and administrators across campus found immediately engaging, was how to change general education so that it would be a better program, more likely to yield clear student learning benefits. A second concern,…

This chapter describes the development and implementation of a graduate-level course on human performance technology (HPT) at Arizona State University -- Tempe. It includes a list of HPT competencies that graduates of instructional design and technology (IDT) programs should attain and a description of a performance improvement project designed to…

It has been argued that high school sports participation increases motivation and teaches teamwork and self-discipline. While several studies have shown that students who participate in athletic activities perform better in school than those who do not, it is not clear whether this association is a result of positive academic spillovers, or due to…

The present study sought to examine the potential for resilience to be enhanced in a group of youth participating in a developmental voyage, and to identify the factors that contribute to increased resilience following the voyage. Two studies are reported. Study 1 revealed that voyage participants experienced increased resilience over the course…

The task of recruiting and retaining ethnically diverse, qualified, and committed social workers in child welfare is challenging. Federal funding supporting BSW and MSW education has been a catalyst for university-agency partnerships across the country. An important goal of these partnerships is to prepare social work students with the knowledge,…

Practical skills are important for the employability of biosciences graduates; however, first year science undergraduates often struggle to adapt to university practical classes, affecting skills development and decreasing their enthusiasm for laboratory work. This study describes the effects of introducing online multimedia practical support…

States, school districts, and schools across the country are increasingly implementing multi-tier systems of support (MTSS) to improve outcomes for all students. Kansas is no exception. The Kansas MTSS is designed to improve outcomes for all students by instituting system-level change across the classroom, school, district, and state. Such…

A growing number of community colleges and four-year universities are seeking to improve student outcomes by redesigning academic programs and student support services following the guided pathways approach. These institutions are mapping out highly structured, educationally coherent program pathways for students to follow by starting with the end…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS, 2010) as the latest initiative in the ongoing effort of educational reform in the United States reinforces the need to build the capacity of teachers as leaders and change agents. As such, graduate teacher leadership programs function to support and develop teacher leadership praxis. Although studies of…

The common purposes of the studies conducted in language program evaluations are to examine the match between what is desired for the programme versus the actual state of the programme, to make judgments about learners' level of skills and knowledge, and to make suggestions for improvement. However, it is not currently common practice in Turkey…

The purpose of this paper is to share the effectiveness of the word study program "Words Their Way" (Bear et. al., 2008) to improve spelling retention of first graders in a regular education classroom in the Spring of 2012. After implementing a traditional spelling program and seeing students continuously spell previous spelling words…

The 2001 reauthorization of the Federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), otherwise known as No Child Left Behind, requires those schools which fail to make "adequate yearly progress" for five consecutive years to enter into "restructuring." Further clarified by the Obama administration's Blueprint for Reform,…

The use of the cohorts in teacher education has steadily increased over the last decade. Research indicates both beneficial and negative aspects to this approach, with the field undecided. This study focuses on a Midwestern university's accelerated graduate program for special educators. The program uses a mixed cohort approach to model…