In the last 20 years the health promoting schools movement has gained momentum internationally. Without strong national leadership and direction its development in New Zealand has been ad hoc and sporadic. However, as the evidence supporting the role of health promoting schools in contributing to students' health and academic outcomes becomes more…

This paper considers professional development in a context that is familiar and problematic to teaching teams in tertiary education everywhere, that of delivering online programmes with an ever-decreasing complement of staff. The Teaching Qualification Further Education (TQFE) teaching team at University of Dundee confronted the reality of reduced…

Having implemented and evaluated over 35 mlearning projects in a variety of contexts in higher education over the past 6 years the researcher is ready to share the untold secret: not all mlearning projects succeed! This article critiques three of the researcher's mlearning projects that can be classed as "failures" and compares them to successful…

The Massachusetts Expanded Learning Time (ELT) initiative was launched in 2005, and it provides grants to selected schools across multiple districts to increase instructional time by at least 300 hours per academic year. Participating schools receive an additional $1,300 per student to lengthen the day and/or year. Schools are expected to use the…

Situated in the heart of the fertile San Joaquin Valley twenty miles north of Fresno, the city of Madera has a population of 56,710 people. Agriculture is the driving force behind the local economy; the area produces more than 100 crops including raisin grapes, almonds, figs, pistachios, alfalfa, corn, milk, cattle and poultry. The total value of…

To support the implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation invested in the development and dissemination of two tools aimed at operationalizing classroom instruction based on the standards: (1) the Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC)'s Framework; and (2) the Math Design Collaborative (MDC)'s…

The Federal Workforce Investment Act (WIA), Title II: Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA) provides funding for states and territories to provide instruction in English as a Second Language (ESL), Adult Basic Education (ABE), and Adult Secondary Education (ASE) to adults in need of these literacy services. California State Budget Act…

This paper describes the diffusion of Moodle within Cherokee County Schools. The diffusion is evaluated using the Bass Model and the RIPPLES model in order to evaluate relative success or failure. The Bass Model of Diffusion was calculated utilizing forecasting by analogy in order to analyze the adoption rates in a county high school. The adoption…

This study presents an innovative pedagogical approach where teachers become game designers and engage in creative teaching practices. Within co-design training workshops, 21 Spanish primary and secondary school teachers have developed their own Game-Based Learning (GBL) scenarios, especially tailored to their teaching contexts and students…

Background/Context: As accountability pressures have mounted toward ever-higher targets under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, low-achieving schools have sought new tools for raising achievement. The association between parent involvement and student achievement is well established, though the association is an indirect relationship mediated…

This paper reports on the perceptions of teaching economists of the nature, implementation and result of outcomes assessment/assurance of learning (AOL) in higher education. The results reported in the paper are based on over eight hundred responses to a web-based survey of teaching economists. While there is little consensus among economists…

The purpose of this study was to use the "KSH analytic framework", a blend of the work of Kotter (1996), Senge (2006), and Heifetz (1994, 2002), as a tool to provide insight into the organizational change process that, when considered, might result in lasting and significant school change. Leadership, vision, teamwork, and action implementation…

The following study was conducted using a mixed-methodology study design. The purpose of this study was to determine if a focused school renewal plan would increase student achievement at Rural Elementary. In order to accomplish this goal, baseline research data was gathered using the What Works in Schools Online Survey (Marzano, 2003) to…

Over the past decade, school districts and states have made impressive advances in collecting and managing data used for accountability purposes. By the year 2011, all 50 states will have systems to track students from year to year. But in most states and districts, all the data generated by these systems flows only one way: up. This paper…

Perhaps one of the fastest ways to improve the quality of out-of-school time programs would be to replace practices that individuals know do not work with practices that appear to be more effective. In this brief, the authors highlight lessons from an expanding body of knowledge about specific program practices that should be avoided or minimized…