Reflective and meditative practices, whether Eastern or Western, are being taught in multiple places--retreat houses, hospitals, Zen centers--but are rarely included in the theology classroom. What would be the rationale for inclusion of reflective/meditative practices in a theology curriculum that does not include such a theory/praxis course?…

Experiences from the step-wise implementation of the Norwegian national system for quality assurance and accreditation provide the empirical base for discussing (1) the readiness among higher education institutions to take an active share in the national system and (2) the potential of a national quality assurance and accreditation system to…

Details a pilot customer service training scheme at Paramount Hotels, which leads to a National Vocational Qualification level 3 in customer services. Describes how the training was designed and delivered, and furnishes the views of Paramount Hotels and some of the participants.

This study used focus groups to create building blocks for the creation of a collaborative program consisting of a university and a school district for the preparation of principals. The focus groups of practitioners considered recommendations from researchers and applied it to the context of their experiences to develop the essentials of a…

In September 2009, the California Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC) awarded $8 million in new Improving Teacher Quality (ITQ) grants to institutions of higher education for the purpose of assisting K-12 teachers to enhance teaching and learning in their classrooms. In addition to the new grants, the ITQ program has 14 individual grants and…

This summative evaluation examines a pilot program supporting beginning science and mathematics teachers through mentoring. It includes mentors' and mentees' expectations of the outcomes of participation in the program and their perceptions of the success of their mentoring relationships across the latter part of the 2008 school year. As well,…

Rising remediation rates among college students are leading to increased time for completion of degree, additional costs for students and colleges, and financial aid being used on courses that do not count towards a degree. In response to these issues, in 2007 the state of Illinois passed the College and Career Readiness Act, Public Act 095-0694,…

Rising remediation rates among college students are leading to increased time for completion of degree, additional costs for students and colleges, and financial aid being used on courses that do not count towards a degree. In response to these issues, in 2007 the state of Illinois passed the College and Career Readiness Act (CCR Act), Public Act…

In England and Wales, there has been a significant investment in technology to support teaching and learning in all subjects and school phases since the mid-1990s and a number of training models and approaches have been used, which include the development of online materials to support face-to-face sessions with expert teacher educator support.…

This article presents a Web 2.0 approach for the arrangement of peer tutoring in online learning. In online learning environments, the learners' expectations of obtaining frequent, one-to-one support from their teachers tend to increase the teachers' workloads to unacceptably high levels. To address this problem of workload a self-organised peer…

The history between Cheektowaga Central and the University at Buffalo illustrates the benefits of forming long-term collaborative relationships between teacher education programs and local schools. In 1998, the author was approached by Suzanne Miller regarding the possibility of Meg Callahan, then a doctoral student at the University at Buffalo,…

This paper attempts to compare the availability, quality, similarities and differences of students' support services in United Kingdom Open University (UKOU) and Sri Lanka Open University (SLOU) and also to identify and enlist the deficiencies that SLOU students are facing in the student support services. To get the desired end four hundred…

The Presenters' Collaborative Network (PCN) was started in 2002 to support the creation of a corps of teacher-consultants who would lead workshops for the Rhode Island Writing Project (RIWP) at local schools and conferences. The PCN is a group of teachers, past participants from summer institutes or year-round embedded programs in schools that…

The INTASC Principles, when used as the basis for developing appropriate measurement instruments to assess teacher dispositions, provide a viable approach to the diagnosis and remediation of skill-related affective performance in teacher candidates and also to meeting NCATE requirements for Standard 1. In this symposium, the development and use of…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify critically important factors that affect the meaningful assessment of student learning outcomes and study why these factors were critically important. A three-round Delphi process was used to solicit the opinions of individuals who were actively involved in student learning outcomes assessment…