There has been much debate on the concept of student as customer/consumer in higher education but little empirical research, most of which lacks a solid theoretical framework. This article summarises the key arguments in the literature and their shortcomings, proposes a framework to analyse student perceptions and behaviour, and reports research…

Content-based instruction course designers have many important decisions to make when developing courses for postsecondary English for academic purposes (EAP) students. One important consideration revolves around deciding if students would benefit most from the use of sustained content (Murphy & Stoller, 2001) or a topical approach (Brinton,…

Elementary school English teachers in Taiwan face classes of students with differing levels of English proficiency, to the point where about one-third of the students may have never learned English before, and another third may already have read Harry Potter in English. A successful teacher recognizes that diversity may affect learning and works…

Research universities, both public and private alike, are the leading producers of science and engineering (S&E) bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees. They are contributors to economic development at the local, state, and national levels, performing over half of the Nation's total basic research in 2009, and they educate and train our…

Over the past three years, more than 20 US states have passed legislation establishing new teacher evaluation requirements and systems, and even more have committed to do so in Race to the Top or Elementary and Secondary Education Act Flexibility Waiver applications. These new evaluation systems have real potential to foster a more…

Universities worldwide are transitioning to blended learning where technology is used to enhance and augment traditional face-to-face instruction. Investigation of how well blended learning strategies are accepted and adopted in multicultural settings is needed to facilitate this transition. This study investigated factors and barriers that…

In the age of standardized testing, science and social studies are not given the same priority as mathematics and reading in the curriculum of United States schools. High stakes testing is viewed as having heavily biased schools toward teaching tested subjects and away from less frequently tested subjects. This paper is premised on the notion that…

Building on their work through Achieving the Dream, six states and 15 community colleges joined the Developmental Education Initiative (DEI) in 2009 to take on one of higher education's most daunting challenges: improving the success of students who enter community college academically underprepared. The states and Jobs for the Future, which…

To meet the new and more rigorous college- and career-ready standards for student learning, all of today's students must have access to effective teaching--every day and in every classroom. As teachers and their school leaders are increasingly held accountable for implementing consistently effective teaching, calls for holding the programs that…

Alumni relations professionals need a method of measuring alumni engagement, including giving, that goes beyond counting event attendees and the number of Twitter followers. Social media are changing the way things have been done within the alumni relations profession, but that does not mean that people throw out everything they have done in the…

In this column, the author discusses how the management of e-books has introduced, at many libraries and in varying degrees, the challenges of maintaining effective technical services workflows. Four different e-book workflows are identified and explored, and the author takes a closer look at how particular variables for each are affected, such as…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the process of information communication technology (ICT) reform in a government school in Singapore. The focus is on the distributed leadership actions performed by various individuals, and how the multiple leaders and their leadership practices interacted with one another.…

Australia's Early Years Learning Framework and leading international researchers argue for more intentional and purposeful teaching of science in the early years. This case study of exemplary practice illustrates intentional teaching of science materials which opened-up learning opportunities in literacy and number. Student-led hands-on…

The process of photosynthesis is central to science curriculum at all levels. This article describes an inquiry-based laboratory investigation developed to explore the impact of light quality on photosynthesis and to connect this process to current research on harvesting solar energy, including bioenergy, artificial photosynthesis, and solar…

This article describes the just-in-time online professional development offered to teachers in the Remote Networked Schools (RNS), a systemic initiative funded by the Quebec Ministry of Education (Canada), which aims at enriching the learning environment of small rural schools with the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). The…