This guide is designed as a resource for leaders and evaluators of K-12 online learning programs. In this guide, the term "online learning" is used to refer to a range of education programs and resources in the K-12 arena, including distance learning courses offered by universities, private providers, or teachers at other schools;…

A study was conducted to investigate the teaching methods valued and used by faculty in Arkansas public higher education institutions at the freshman and sophomore levels. The participants were 336 teachers who responded to a 21 item survey distributed to college teachers in Arkansas. The study sought to collect relevant demographic data and to…

Salaries and benefits for instruction are the largest component of school operating costs for public schools (U.S. Department of Education 2007). The level and structure of this compensation can play an important role in the recruitment and retention of a high-quality teaching workforce. Thus, detailed and reliable data on teacher pay and benefits…

Based on Penn State's popular "Innovation Insights" series, this book brings together in one handy reference nearly a decade of tried and true insights into continuous quality improvements in higher education. Their five-step model for integrating planning, assessment, and improvement moves plans off the shelf and into the weekly and daily…

A long standing debate among policymakers as well as researchers is whether and how funding affects the quality of education. Often missing from the discussion is information about the costs of providing education at the school level and below, yet such information could impart a better indication of the linkages between outcomes and resources…

The present study explored the ways in which the production of digital media, specifically podcasts (i.e., downloadable digital audio files), rooted in the key tenets of critical literacy, can support education for democracy, in addition to the overall benefits and barriers of podcasting in an elementary classroom. The project can be considered a…

Scholars have provided numerous critical analyses of the structural causes of poverty. Unfortunately, many teachers are still led to believe, via best selling books and mainstream discourse, that behaviors, neighborhoods, and families determine educational outcomes. This "culture of poverty" theory must be disproved; educators need to be…

Educational improvement through data-based decision-making using high-quality data is a longstanding goal of policymakers and practitioners, and ensuring the quality of the evidence available to inform such decisions is a key part of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. The evidence-based education that such initiatives promote involves the…

The transition into high school is a critical point in the educational pipeline, and ninth-grade can be characterized as one of its leakiest junctures. This policy brief examines how some states and districts are currently easing the transition into high school for students. It focuses on five key challenges that states, districts and schools…

As states grapple with collecting post-school outcome data, many are seeking guidance on strategies for improving response rates, especially for students who exit school early and informally by dropping out. This practice brief is intended for state and local education agency personnel charged with designing systems to collect post-school outcome…

With the advent of No Child Left Behind, Adequate Yearly Progress, and school budget cuts, school librarians have had to become more data driven than ever before. Thinking in terms of student learning and achievement has brought about an interest in evidence-based practice (EBP). In this article, the authors discuss three steps to understanding…

Online data collection in academic research might be replacing paper-and-pencil surveys or questionnaires in the near future. This paper discusses the advantages and limitations of online data collection, with particular reference to the conduct of two qualitative studies involving upper secondary school teachers and students in Iceland in 2002.…

Members of a team of educators and university students participating in the project, Pittsburgh Partnership for Energizing Science in Urban Schools, addressed the issue of helping students develop investigative skills within the context of an introductory science unit for fourth graders. The unit focuses on data-collection techniques and is a…

This study describes three action cycles I identified retrospectively and examines the processes I underwent through the lens of research literature dealing with leadership. I then provide a retrospective account of my reflections on my actions over a four-year period. As the head of the Elementary School Department in a teacher education college,…

In this study, the consistency of on-task data collected across raters using either a Daily Behavior Report Card (DBRC) or systematic direct observation was examined to begin to understand the decision reliability of using DBRCs to monitor student behavior. Results suggested very similar conclusions might be drawn when visually examining data…