Systemic efforts to implement data-based decision making at the school and classroom level face several challenges. First, most data available within district information systems are limited to what has been deemed important for the operational needs of schools and the district. Second, educational organizations have little experience integrating…

For the past decade, the federal government has supported comprehensive school reform as a way to improve under-performing schools (US Department of Education 1998). Thousands of schools across the country are now implementing scores of different whole school reform models with the hopes of improving school culture and raising student performance.…

This document outlines what beginning classroom teachers and arts education specialists should know and be able to do to teach the arts effectively. The volume serves as a guide for individual states, professional organizations, and teacher education programs as they develop and refine their standards and practices. The Interstate New Teacher…

This guide for current and prospective adult educators is a comprehensive, practical conceptual framework for planning, designing/implementing, and evaluating/accounting for adult education programs. Chapter 1 describes the programming process. Chapter 2 describes 13 nationally recognized models of the adult education programming process, the…

This report describes activities and achievements of a project that developed and evaluated the Demand Writing Instructional Model (DWIM), a comprehensive writing program for students with learning disabilities (LD) and low-performing students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds in inclusive general education classrooms. The…

Early Childhood Research and Practice (ECRP), a peer-reviewed Internet-only journal sponsored by the Early Childhood and Parenting (ECAP) Collaborative at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, covers topics related to the development, care, and education of children from birth to approximately age 8. The journal emphasizes articles…

There has been a dearth of First Nations people teaching First Nations Studies programs across Canada. This means that Native students must learn their history and contemporary academic knowledge from those who are non-Native in ethnicity and background and whose knowledge has been learned in schools instead of lived. It is time that First Nations…

The purpose of this study was to use realistically simulated data to evaluate various CAT designs for use with the verbal reasoning measure of the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT). Factors such as item pool depth, content constraints, and item formats often cause repeated adaptive administrations of an item at ability levels that are not…

A teacher and mother of a child with mental retardation examined the history and current status of the inclusion movement. A review of the historical background considers the origins of special education, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, major court cases, and requirements of the 1997 amendments to the Individuals with…

This book discusses how educators can achieve inclusive classrooms that give students with different abilities the maximum opportunity for growth. It provides frameworks for planning learning environments, content, process, and products that enable students with learning challenges to succeed with meaningful curriculum. Decision-making guidelines…

This paper reports on research carried out through a case study which sought to identify how institutionalized teaching and learning practices and processes--"the way we do things around here"--led to successful teaching and learning with information and communication technology (ICT) at a large contributing New Zealand primary school…

Social capital helps communities respond positively to change. Research into managing change through learning in communities and in small businesses, particularly farm businesses, has highlighted the importance of relationships between people and the formal and informal structure of communities to the quality of outcomes experienced by…

This book (second edition) is an adaptation of Howard Gardener's theory on multiple intelligences (MI). The model in this book provides a language for talking about the inner gifts of so-called learning-disabled children. It describes how to bring Gardner's theory--a means of mapping the broad range of human abilities--into the classroom. The MI…

The role of early childhood educator and caregiver is ever widening to include increasing responsibility for social and emotional development. The dramatic rise of violence among school children in recent years underscores the importance of teaching young children how to manage conflicts and resolve interpersonal differences prosocially. This…

"EFF HOT (Highlights on Teaching Topics) Topics" is a publication of the EFF (Equipped for the Future) Center for Training and Technical Assistance. Each issue concentrates on a specific topic, highlighting examples of actual practice and offering strategies and tools for using EFF in the classroom. In this issue, "HOT Topics" focuses on the…