Embedded assessments, tasks within the context of instruction, can serve as important tools for improving teaching and learning. In this article, we report on the assessment design principles and a nine-step development model that guided the construction of innovative embedded assessments. Using multiple sources of data--expert reviews, a…

In this cartoon essay, the author shares his experience from a travel to Paris to see the French higher education system. From his travel, he learned that in France, "degree" inflation may be an issue, but not grade inflation. On the flight home, the author reflects how French and American academics answer one question about the state of…

This commentary presents an Australian perspective on Balkin and Mello's "Facilitating and Creating Synergies between Teaching and Research: The Role of the Academic Administrator." It addresses one particularly important aspect of the separation of teaching and research in business schools; namely, the increasing dominance of…

Beginning in the late 1980s and early 1990s, higher education was swept up in the theoretical phenomena of mastery learning, cooperative learning, and small-group learning. Professors, instructors, and teachers at the K-12 level became facilitators, guides, supervisors, counselors, and advocates for all things team and group. The thought of a…

Background: Using meta-analytic review techniques, this study synthesized the results of 79 unpublished studies about the nature of transformational school leadership (TSL) and its impact on the school organization, teachers, and students. This corpus of research associates TSL with 11 specific leadership practices. These practices, as a whole,…

I raise the problem that religious effects on the education practices of Australian religious schooling have not been measured, despite many claims and the critical size of the sector. The paper seeks to suggest factors to be considered in shaping methodologies for researching this area. Identifying four ways that religious schooling has been…

The impetus for this argumentative paper is anecdotal evidence overheard in West Australian educational settings indicating that there continues to be "othering" of learners from Asian backgrounds. Exploring prevailing Western social, theoretical and educational discourses associated with Asia, the author argues that teacher education in…

This article discusses how the underlying assumptions and practices of teacher research position it as a distinct form of educational inquiry, and identifies qualitative methodology as a central influence on the work. A discussion of some of the common conceptualizations and processes of PK-12 teacher research, the complex yet continually changing…

The author finds the target article "Cultural Variation and Dominance in a Globalised Knowledge Economy" to be a thoughtful exploration of an important topic for all social scientists, certainly including those who study gifted development and education. Roland S. Persson (2012a) raises many questions about policy and practice in giftedness…

This article reports on a review of the mathematics education research literature 1989-May 2011 specific to K-12 African American students' opportunities to learn mathematics. Although we identify important developments in the literature, we conclude that the existing research base generally remains at the level of broad principles or orientations…

PhDs by publications are a relatively new model for doctoral research, especially in the context of the Humanities or Education. This paper describes two writers' experiences of conducting doctoral studies in this genre and in these faculties. Each discover alternative ways of employing a body of published research papers in development of an…

The reported level of use of eight instructional strategies in a sample of 531 special educators in the Czech Republic was examined in this study. Consistent with recent parallel studies in North America and Australia, the respondents reported that they used a combination of evidence-based instructional practices (such as direct instruction and…

Students' experiences and the opportunities they have to learn rest on the quality of education decisions made in each classroom, in each school, in each district, and in each state, federal legislature, and department of education. The role of research and scholarship more broadly in education finance and policy is to inform these decisions for…

Given scarce resources for evaluation, we recommend that education researchers more frequently conduct comprehensive randomized trials that generate evidence on how, why, and under what conditions interventions succeed or fail in producing effects. Recent experience evaluating a randomized need-based financial aid intervention highlights some of…

This paper outlines the findings of a review that examined the literature around current practice in one-to-one online tuition in schools and higher education. It summarizes the purposes, contexts, scope, and methods of 17 core studies identified through a systematic literature search. It then uses a conceptual framework focusing on pedagogical…