Evidence-based and highly effective, "coaching" helps early childhood practitioners support other professionals and families as they enhance existing knowledge, develop new skills, and promote healthy development of young children. This hands-on guide shows professionals how to conduct skillful coaching in any setting--home, school, or community.…

Background: In the last decade, asynchronous online discussion forums have become a primary focus of many educational researchers. Some advocates believed that the process of typing out messages in itself can promote in-depth critical thinking skills. Nevertheless, empirical research has not provided much support for this claim in natural…

It can be difficult for any customer service environment to keep up with the whirlwind pace of change in today's technology-centric world. The challenge can be particularly daunting in an institutional setting accustomed to deliberative, consensus-driven change. The Office of the Registrar at Indiana University Bloomington (IUB) has a…

Colleges and universities across the United States are struggling with student retention and attrition (Derby & Smith, 2004; Jacobs & Archie, 2008; Tinto, 1993). As a result, theoretically supported interventions designed to encourage retention and persistence are needed. The purpose of this study was twofold: (a) to intentionally create…

The researcher designed this qualitative study to identify and explore the preservice technology training experiences of novice teachers and examine their perceptions of how well their teacher preparation program equipped them with the knowledge and skills necessary to fulfill the National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS.T).…

Culture, defined as the visible organizational behaviors and practices; the espoused values that represent organizational philosophies and understandings; and the values and core beliefs that construct the philosophies represented by organizational action, is formed over decades as institutions learn to respond to challenges associated with their…

Incorporating the psychological perspective, this study examines factors associated with the upward transfer of baccalaureate aspirants beginning at community colleges. Based on data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 and the Postsecondary Education Transcript Study, the study tests a logistic regression model to predict…

Virtual world platforms such as "Second Life" have been successfully used in educational contexts to motivate and engage learners. This article reports on an exploratory workshop involving a group of high school students using "Second Life" for an urban planning project. Young people are traditionally an under-represented demographic when it comes…

This qualitative case-study explores the ways in which an innovative M.Ed. program facilitated the development of future ECE reflective leaders. Using case study methodology, it presents the transformational process two recent graduates underwent during their studies. The findings indicate four main sources that initiated the deep student…

This study examined an elementary school, located in an urban school district, which was labeled as a Persistently Low-Achieving School (PLAS) by the federal government in 2009 in order to determine how the school planned to change leadership and staff; increase student achievement; and implement new approaches for changes in school climate. The…

This study explores how collaborative inquiry learning can be supported with multiple scaffolding agents in a real-life field trip context. In practice, a mobile peer-to-peer messaging tool provided meta-cognitive and procedural support, while tutors and a nature guide provided more dynamic scaffolding in order to support argumentative discussions…

At present a new era has evolved in the education sector by means of ICTs. Different ICTs are now set to become instrumental to help expand access to education, strengthen the relevance of education to the increasingly digital workplace, and raise educational quality by, among others, helping make teaching and learning into an engaging, active…

In this article, we report the action research that shaped the development of the Growing Career Educators project, a teacher-designed field experience for preservice teachers within a high school in the fifth-largest school district in the country. The research consisted of two cycles of action research, both of which focused on whether a…

Although some gender activists and analysts question the efficacy of gender mainstreaming to take forward women's demands, the South African government has pursued the strategy within a number of government departments including the Department of Education. This article explores how the strategy is being implemented in one provincial education…

The use of online discussion has a long history in distance education and higher education generally, and has recently been proposed as a means of supporting beginning teachers as they face the challenge of being new to the profession. Often using text-based asynchronous programs, online discussion is advocated to enable teachers to interact with…