This book investigates the ways in which new developments in areas of language teaching practice, such as policy-making, planning, methodology and the use of educational technology are locally adopted, adapted, and initiated and implemented in the four nations of the United Kingdom: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. By looking at the…

Online learning continues to grow at unprecedented rates. K-12 had more than 275,000 students enrolled in full-time virtual schools in 2011--2012 and over 2 million participating in at least one online course. Despite this growth, there is little research on model formation and model validation for online learning. Two research-based models were…

Only by shifting away from a one-size-fits-all approach to teaching and learning can every student achieve self-efficacy and true success in the classroom. In this resource, authors Eric Twadell, Mark Onuscheck, Anthony R. Reibel, and Troy Gobble provide educators with a comprehensive strategy implementation process for proficiency-based…

"Strategic Inquiry" is an innovative model for promoting teacher collaboration around identifying specific "learning gaps" that keep struggling students from succeeding. Gaps may include anything from the proper use of commas and conjunctions to concepts such as "slope" in math. The authors argue that addressing these…

The leadership institute, targeting new and aspiring county Extension directors, was completely revised to reflect face-to-face and online constructivist learning theory and practice. New co-learning and engagement methods were incorporated, and all facilitators and teachers/presenters were trained and coached to use the new methods and…

Learning to write is an arduous undertaking for every student; for deaf and hard of hearing students, it can be particularly difficult. Too often, they arrive in school with minimal literacy skills, experience subsequent difficulties in writing standard English, and, unfortunately, still graduate with reading levels below those of their hearing…

The Schools to Watch: School Transformation Network Project is a whole school reform model designed to improve the educational practices, experiences, and outcomes of low-performing middle-grades schools. Developed by the National Forum to Accelerate Middle-Grades Reform, the four-year project was funded in 2010 by a U.S. Department of Education…

In this paper, we look at the University of Crete experience to integrate the concept of sustainable development across all its operations. Through a review of current sustainability practices of universities worldwide, this paper has identified a number of principles for developing a sustainable university. These principles are then used as a…

A serendipitous moment, a passing conversation, led to this study. A university professor expressed concern that his second-grade son was "bored" with his weekly spelling lists, homework, and tests. A colleague of his, a former elementary teacher with 30 years experience and currently teaching field-based methods courses in this child's…

Teacher education in universities is under pressure. In many new education policies there is a renewed focus on teacher quality, and therefore quality initial teacher education. In some countries this renewed focus has led to a resurgence of "alternative approaches" to teacher education such as Teach for America / Australia. One of the…

America's public schools are required to provide equal access to an education for all students. This study, in the form of an executive position paper, focused on how a large suburban school district having a small but diverse English language population should provide that equal access in order to address the academic needs of its current…

The utilization of adjunct faculty, especially in the community college setting, has steadily increased over the last several decades. Staff development for faculty at a community college, however, is often disproportionately targeted toward full-time faculty. This study used a program evaluation to assess an existing online faculty development…

Adoption resulting from University of Nebraska-Lincoln Crop Management Diagnostic Clinic (CMDC) field days was evaluated using an on-line survey. Respondents reported significant gains in skills because of CMDC, but the gains were similar across skill areas. Adoption was affected by compatibility with the cropping system, relative advantage,…

This article examines how laptop computing technology, teacher professional development, and systematic support resulted in changed teaching practices and increased student achievement in 47 K-12 schools in 11 Florida school districts. The overview of a large-scale study documents the type and magnitude of change in student-centered teaching,…

This report provides initial results of Illinois' Shifting Gears Initiative that operated between July 1, 2007 and June 30, 2009. This mixed method (qualitative and quantitative) evaluation sought to accomplish three goals: (1) to assess program and student outcomes for two models (adult education and developmental education) for two target groups…