The professional discipline of strategic public relations offers many benefits to organizations. It helps them prevent and mitigate crises. It allows them to identify and manage issues that may interfere with their goals and objectives. It also leads them in building and maintaining quality relationships with strategic publics. However, can the…

A national framework of continuing professional development (CPD) for teachers in Scotland has emerged since the McCrone Inquiry. The CPD Framework is intended to help teachers to identify and access relevant, high-quality development opportunities that enable them to realise their full potential. There is now a professional standard for each of…

"Instructional Design: Case Studies in Communities of Practice" documents real-world experiences of instructional designers and staff developers who work in communities of practice. "Instructional Design: Case Studies in Communities of Practice" explains the strategies and heuristics used by instructional designers when working…

Contemporary school administrators play a daunting array of roles. They must be educational visionaries and change agents, instructional leaders, curriculum and assessment experts, budget analysts, facility managers, special program administrators, and community builders. New expectations for schools--that they successfully teach a broad range of…

This study examines one NSF-funded Collaborative for Excellence in Teacher Preparation and describes the complexities of such a science education reform effort. A theoretical model based in community, culture, and identity is used to address key questions: How did institutional ideologies, structures, policies, and practices influence the…

A recent article in the "New York Times" observed that the formula used by the federal government to distribute federal student aid funds favors the colleges and universities with greatest resources over those which are less well off ("New York Times," 2003). The story, "Richest Colleges Receive Richest Share of Federal…

The unrehearsed performance of music, called "sight-reading" (SR), is a basic skill for all musicians. It is of particular interest for musical occupations such as the piano accompanist, the conductor, or the correpetiteur. However, up until now, there is no theory of SR which considers all relevant factors such as practice-related…

In this paper, we investigate the question of what assessment tools are being used in practice by United States computing programs and what the faculty doing the assessment think of the tools they use. After presenting some background with regard to the design, implementation, and use of assessment, with particular attention to assessment tools,…

This article considers the role of culture in establishing a program of educational reform in Lithuania, a former Soviet Bloc state. Specifically, through a comparative analysis of survey information from an international cross-section of individuals involved with educational reform programs in Lithuania at the local, regional, and national…

Motivational interviewing (MI) is a clinical method for helping people to resolve ambivalence about change by evoking intrinsic motivation and commitment. Based on our research and experience in providing training on MI, practitioners acquire expertise in this method through a sequence of eight stages: (1) openness to collaboration with clients'…

A research project used critical incident technique to investigate the expertise of staff development leaders in higher education institutions in the United Kingdom. Problems inherent in such analyses are considered and the methodology briefly outlined. Interviewees' conceptions of their professional learning and the basis of their expertise are…

Building on the results of a prior study, the purpose of this qualitative study was to further explore where there is agreement on the effects of e-­learning technologies in higher education learning experiences. The results confirm that (1) there are many varied and polarized perspectives about e­learning, and each position should be carefully…

This article develops the notion that virtues can be utilized as a means of understanding the professional expertise that science teachers demonstrate when they deal with socioscientific issues. Socioscientific issues are those contentious issues that connect science to the society in which it operates--environmental issues being a prime example.…

The purpose of this article is to suggest some ways in which researchers can make their work more useful to policymakers. Policy research is more than "applied" research. It is designed to answer questions about what "actions" will or will not be effective in dealing with the problem studied, not just to understand the antecedents or consequences…

"Educating the Human Brain" is the product of a quarter century of research. This book provides an empirical account of the early development of attention and self regulation in infants and young children. It examines the brain areas involved in regulatory networks, their connectivity, and how their development is influenced by genes and…