Coalition government policies have put into question the role of local authorities in a "self-improving school system". In a number of local authorities new authority-wide partnership bodies are being set up involving all local schools, including academies, and controlled by headteachers. This article begins with an analysis of the new…

This paper explores how the strong policy push to improve students' results on national literacy and numeracy tests -- the National Assessment Program, Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) -- in the Australian state of Queensland influenced schooling practices, including teachers' learning. The paper argues the focus upon improved test scores on NAPLAN…

The international Education for All initiative to bring about universal primary education has resulted in large enrollment increases in lower income countries but with limited outcomes. Due to scarcity in material and human resources, all but the better off often fail to learn basic skills. To improve performance within the very limited capacities…

We report on the establishment of communities of practice at four Australian institutions and evaluate their effectiveness and durability as a means of building staff and institutional capacity for interdisciplinary teaching. A community of practice approach is a potentially valuable methodology for overcoming dynamics of fragmentation, isolation…

This study examines the impact of an assessment training module on student assessment skills and task performance in a technology-facilitated peer assessment. Seventy-eight undergraduate students participated in the study. The participants completed an assessment training exercise, prior to engaging in peer-assessment activities. During the…

In this paper, we describe the faculty development resources, structures, and processes utilized to promote educational scholarship in a department of pediatrics. We discuss a 5-year effort based on the strategy of forming an "academy" of educational scholars and resulting in significant increases in peer-reviewed conference…

The authors assessed the impact of peer review on student writing in four sections of an undergraduate Developmental Psychology course. They hypothesized that peer review would result in better writing in the peer review group compared to the group with no peer review. Writing was rated independently by two instructors who were blind to the…

This paper explores the nature and quality of the participation that characterises the Bank's consultations with external actors and examines the extent to which the Bank is responsive to such feedback when it comes to defining its policy preferences and strategies in the education domain. It draws on a case study of the participatory process that…

When one of the authors saw the job description for an elementary school mathematics coach on a state Department of Education website, she recognized it as an opportunity to have her dream job. She knew that making the transition from the classroom to a math teacher leader would afford her the opportunity to have an even greater impact on student…

Although national trends of urban adolescent reading underachievement suggest that schools are unable to adequately support this population's reading development, some studies have demonstrated that urban schools can operate to raise student achievement, thereby disrupting national trends. In this study, the author investigates one such school…

Kimbel Library launched its mobile environment and ran it in full production for several months yet usage patterns were quite low and flat. The library only saw a substantial increase in usage when new, value-added services were integrated into this platform. Upon implementing and integrating discovery services, chat and SMS capabilities, and…

How to address the educational needs of students with limited English proficiency (LEP) is a particularly challenging and often controversial endeavor. Failure to address the needs of students with LEP often results in denial of meaningful educational opportunities and leads to disproportionate representation in special education programs. This…

Feedback is an effective instructional practice for improving achievement. The importance of feedback has been understood by teachers for many years, yet recent research has elevated its status. One characteristic of effective feedback is personalized comments, which assist students in understanding their performance. Most research analyzes the…

Educational policy-makers around the world are strongly committed to the notion of "scaling up". This can mean anything from encouraging more teachers to take up a pedagogical innovation, all the way through to system-wide efforts to implement "what works" across all schools. In this paper, I use Bourdieu's notions of…

Practical education in chemical engineering has drawn increasing attention in recent years. This paper discusses two approaches to teaching and learning about experiments among upper-level chemical and pharmaceutical engineering majors in China. On the basis of years of experience in teaching chemical and pharmaceutical engineering, we propose the…