Purpose--Environmental assessment (EA) is a proactive planning tool designed to consider the ecological, cultural, socio-political and economic impacts of potential projects, making it a major tool for achieving sustainable development. Meaningful EA requires a bridging of the natural sciences with the social sciences to broaden understanding of…

What does a high school diploma do for new graduates? For decades, Americans have come to expect a diploma to do at least two things: (1) offer a chance at jobs that support a family; and (2) qualify its holder for entrance into the military. But today, most young people and their parents also expect it to open the door to postsecondary education,…

Learning communities can emerge spontaneously when people find common learning goals and pursue projects and tasks together in pursuit of those goals. "Bounded" learning communities (BLCs) are groups that form within a structured teaching or training setting, typically a course. Unlike spontaneous communities, BLCs develop in direct response to…

As the American economy becomes increasingly knowledge based, attaining a postsecondary education is more important than ever. Projections for the next decade suggest that the strongest job growth will be in occupations requiring postsecondary education. This article examines changes between 1987 and 2003 in the postsecondary education enrollment…

Curriculum-Based Assessment for Instructional Design (CBA-ID) provides data used to ensure an appropriately challenging learning task. One aspect of appropriate challenge measured by CBA-ID, called the acquisition rate (AR), involves the amount of new information a student could acquire and retain during initial learning. Previous research…

Using recent experience at Carleton College in Minnesota as a case history, the authors offer a model for assessment that provides more flexibility than the well-known assessment feedback loop, which assumes a linear progression within a hierarchical administrative structure. The proposed model is based on a double helix, with values and feedback…

Specialists in the field of large-scale, high-stakes writing assessment have, over the last forty years alternately discussed the issue of maximizing either reliability or validity in test design. Factors complicating the debate--such as Messick's (1989) expanded definition of validity, and the ethical implications of testing--are explored. An…

Business schools often assign student group projects to enhance student learning of course content and to build teamwork skills. However, the characteristics of effective collaborative learning tasks, including group goals and individual accountability, are often not found in student group projects assigned in business classes. The current…

The development of gerontological education is lagging behind in Japan in spite of Japan's large population of elders. Nevertheless, there are signs that this may be changing. In this paper we discuss how gerontology education has evolved in Japan over the past 40 years. Specifically, we provide an overview of the development of academic societies…

This article features Edcouch-Elsa High School, a 1,500-student comprehensive high school in Edcouch, Texas. Edcouch-Elsa, which is located in the southern Rio Grande Valley, draws students from Edcouch, Elsa, and the surrounding agricultural communities located in the Delta Area of Hidalgo County, Texas. With about 25% of the students living with…

This article features University Park Campus School, a 7-12 grade school in Worcester, Massachusetts. University Park was created through a partnership between Clark University and Worcester Public Schools. It opened in 1997 as a public school educational alternative for students from the challenging inner-city neighborhood directly adjacent to…

Ideally, there should be a global statistical picture of TVET presenting, for every country in the world, data such as: (1) Enrolment rates by gender, age and programme; (2) The relative proportions of people enrolled in general and vocational programmes; (3) The relative proportions enrolled in programmes provided by enterprises, government and…

This work summarizes results from three studies of the current state of higher education faculty development in Russia. Positive aspects include its support for societal change, content focus, regularity, systematic nature, governmental support, established tradition, encouragement of graduate work, career-long continuity, institutional control,…

This study investigated the orthographic and phonological coding strategies of students with symmetrical and asymmetrical reading and spelling achievement. Based on performance on a standardized achievement test, fourth-and fifth-grade students (N = 50) were classified as having no difficulties with reading and spelling, difficulties with both…

This working paper examines the approaches, wisdom, and experience generated by the ChalleNGe program, as well as the vast storehouse of knowledge and research, models and systems possessed by the military services that are potentially applicable to educating and developing youngsters who are at greatest risk of academic failure, economic…