Being an educational leader isn't getting any easier, but it has never been more exciting, especially when one has the opportunity to change the face of education and move it into the 21st century. For some people, this change is fun and invigorating, but for others, it can be downright frightening and painful. So how can teachers and school…

In this article, I am concerned with three key issues of teacher professional development--teacher learning, motivation, and transfer of learning. Each issue has received minimal attention in teacher professional development literature. The three issues are discussed, and a model of an integrative professional development approach is outlined,…

The 2015 Minnesota Legislature enacted a state postsecondary educational attainment goal: 70 percent of Minnesota adults (age 25 to 44) will have attained a postsecondary certificate or degree by 2025 ("Minnesota Laws 2015 Chapter 69, Article 3, Section 6"). To achieve this goal, Minnesota must address disparities across the educational…

The creation of this document has been driven by an intensive review process by the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child and the National Forum on Early Childhood Policy and Programs to assure the credibility of its scientific content. Over the past 12 years, the Council's ongoing work to bring science to bear on public policies for…

The North Central Comprehensive Center team at McREL International conducted an analysis of current literature regarding student and teacher absenteeism to better conceptualize the problem and highlight successful steps that can be taken to address it. Drawing upon theoretically conceptualized and practically applied strategies for resolving…

Recent studies continue to shine light on high-performing charter schools. While Boston-area charter schools--a concentrated group of high-performers--garner more attention than others, many excellent schools outside of Boston have been quietly chipping away at the achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students. One of these schools…

These are the key findings from the "From Best Practices to Breakthrough Impacts: A Science-Based Approach to Building a More Promising Future for Young Children and Families". Early childhood is a time of great promise and rapid change, when the architecture of the developing brain is most open to the influences of relationships and…

Undergraduate and graduate students at an AACSB International accredited Midwestern business school were surveyed about their perceptions of traits that might contribute to good teaching. Thirty-five traits were presented for evaluation. Students scored each trait and identified the items they perceived as the five most important and the five…

Teachers' decisions about pedagogy are informed by a range of educational discourses. These discourses constitute particular kinds of teaching practices and teacher-student relationships in ways that are not immediately obvious. When a particular pedagogy becomes accepted as best practice and it produces desired learning outcomes for the majority…

The purpose of the paper is to identify key issues relating to best practice and sustainability in Web 2.0 as an e-Learning strategy for supporting e-portfolios in Higher Education. A practical guidelines framework was developed for best practices, which can be justified by the lack of available frameworks in the e-Learning literature. A…

Web 2.0 technologies are increasingly being used to support teaching in higher education courses. However, preliminary research has shown that students are using such technologies primarily for social purposes, rather than as a means of further engaging with academic content. This study examines a cohort of tertiary students' use of a Facebook…

The purpose of this article was to highlight important research needs related to physical activity in 3-to 5-year-old children. We identified research needs in 3 major categories: health effects, patterns of physical activity, and interventions and policies. The top research needs include identifying the health effects of physical activity, the…

Background: Given dismal attendance rates in community-based care for children and families, it is critical that evidence-informed attendance engagement strategies be implemented within community service systems. There is growing research on effective methods for training in evidence-based practices (EBPs), and one method that shows promise is the…

The purpose of this paper is to provide a current look at the status of evidence-based practice (EBP) for students with intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorders. Specifically, this paper will (1) provide an introduction to the history and evolution of the use of levels of evidence, (2) discuss the importance of EBPs, (3) identify…

In 2006, dairy farmers in the Aorere Catchment of New Zealand began to investigate allegations that they had a pollution problem affecting the viability of the community's shellfish industry. From 2007 to 2010, the New Zealand Landcare Trust's Aorere Catchment Project (ACP) helped farmers engage in actions to improve conditions in their waterways.…