Drawing on a realistic model for evaluating compensatory education effects, Chapter 1 staff members have developed a workshop series aimed at improving the effectiveness of local Chapter 1 programs. Improvement efforts are to be data driven, research based, team centered, locally controlled, systematic, and focused on student outcomes. (20…

Refutes three evaluation myths--(1) evaluation is findings; (2) outcomes are hard to measure; and (3) evaluation is an add-on--with three principles: (1) evaluation is a learning process; (2) soft data about important issues are better than hard data about unimportant issues; and (3) meaningful evaluation is integrated into teaching and learning.…

Four conditions for creating or refining alternative teacher certification programs are improving instruction, addressing shortages of qualified teachers, placing teachers in hard-to-staff schools, and measuring teacher competence. Programs should be pragmatic, market sensitive, embedded in the learning context, and performance driven. (SK)

Briefly reviews counseling profession's call for revitalization and transformation in school counseling and guidance programs. Summarizes one school system's efforts during late 1980s and early 1990s to transform its program from services and crisis orientation into a comprehensive developmental model based on Myrick's developmental guidance and…

Cooperative education as work-based learning has been around for decades. Co-op programs can be revitalized by using electronic communications with employers and customizing classroom assignments so they relate to students' work tasks. (Author/JOW)

Suggests a framework of six steps that can be used as a starting point to improve a secondary theater program to meet mandated standards: define motivation, study the standards, analyze the present program, create a planning team, determine student goals, and revise the curriculum. (PA)

The vision of continuing professional education should be reframed to place development of expertise and improvement of professional practice at the core. Providers would offer market-driven services that include education, evaluation, and consultation. (SK)

A master plan for updating keyboarding programs must ensure that five components work together: learner, teacher, curriculum, resources, and administration. Periodic evaluation ensures that the program is providing the skills needed. (SK)

The research's purpose was to examine how exemplary community college study abroad programs assisted student participants in acquiring global competence. Three research questions were explored: (1) What issues need to be anticipated when planning a study abroad program for community college students in order to effectively incorporate…

Educational researchers and practitioners have paid considerable attention to the use of multiuser virtual environments (MUVEs) in recent years in order to support learning across curricula. Among MUVEs, Second Life (SL) is one of the most popular environments, with over 18 million account-registered users as of May 2008. This paper reports a…

Background/Context: Research on after-school programs has traditionally focused on those programs serving students in younger grades but found positive correlations between student participation in enriching after-school activities and school engagement. For older students, particularly teenagers, there tends to be lower participation. Research…

Assessment, particularly formative assessment, is critical to knowing how a student is performing academically and how best to support that student. Teachers, especially new teachers, need ongoing support in developing and using both summative and formative assessments as an integral part of their instructional practice. Written collaboratively by…

The Fulbright-Hays Seminars Abroad Program and Special Bilateral Projects provides short-term study and travel seminars abroad for U.S. educators in the social sciences and humanities for the purpose of improving their understanding and knowledge of the people and culture of other countries. There are approximately 10 seminars with 16 participants…

By some accounts, about half the music educators in America leave the profession within five years. That means all those ex-music teachers have spent just about as much time training for their profession as they've spent actually practicing it. And for a growing number of their colleagues, this is a situation that must be addressed, as impossible…

School District 54 in Schaumburg, Illinois, always viewed itself as a great school district. Unfortunately, many parents and community members in the district, located on the outskirts of Chicago, thought of it as less than stellar. Student achievement had remained stagnant for several years. Staff members were becoming increasingly frustrated and…