To ensure that young people and adults acquire the skills they need to render them employable, vocational education and training systems around the world construct various forms of collaboration between the public and private sectors. Public-private partnerships that focus on skills development are one form of collaboration in the provision of…

Educational Technology is the right couple to a radical innovation. Thanks to the appropriate technology in the right context with the best fit to the target audience, education can be drastically improved, meaning a better performance, competence achievement, match with the user's expectations and with the market needs. Serious games, Virtual…

A capability maturity model provides a thorough understanding of where the organization is and, perhaps more importantly, where the organization needs to grow. The purpose of this report is to describe the development of the ADL Initiative Distributed Learning Capability Maturity Model (DL-CMM), illustrate its major components, and explain how it…

Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) are approaches to help us to understand and improve the world. Therefore, as a country, we need to develop more STEM literate citizens through exemplary STEM learning in schools. This report asks four questions that are answered through five case studies: (1) What is exemplary STEM learning?; (2)…

The COVID-19 pandemic upended American education, throwing schools first into an impromptu version of distance learning in the spring of 2020 followed by a summer beset by uncertainty then delayed and uneven reopenings in the fall. Parents faced tough decisions about their children's education during the pandemic. In July 2020, a poll found that…

In this paper, we share our findings from a curricular innovation project: a small pilot study replacing a conventional professional communication textbook with an open access book. Results showed that students received the change favorably, and a final grade comparison showed no variation between similar courses that used conventional books and…

Centres for teaching and learning at postsecondary educational institutions in Canada seek to serve the professional development needs of faculty members throughout the college or university. Recognizing the limits of conventional frameworks for faculty development, such as one-time workshops, pedagogical conferences, and lunchtime discussion…

The word innovation can mean a number of things to different stakeholders and policymakers. This discourse analysis examines how the Texas Education Agency (TEA) has used an initiative called "Districts of Innovation" to attempt to support and empower districts throughout the state of Texas. The question becomes whether those attempts…

Nova Scotia University (NSU) is inarguably a leader in distance education. The purpose of this article is to examine the success of Nova Southeastern University's early implementation of distance education through Rogers' (2003) four main elements of diffusion of innovations. Rogers argued there are four elements involved in the diffusion of new…

Background/Context: This study examines the implementation of an academic and social-emotional learning innovation called Personalization for Academic and Social-Emotional Learning, or PASL. The innovation was designed, tested, and implemented using a continuous continuous-improvement model. The model emphasized a top-and-bottom process in which…

This paper illustrates an evaluation model emerging from Australian research. With reference to a range of contexts, its usefulness is demonstrated through application to two professional development initiatives designed to improve continuity of learning in the context of the transition to school. The model reconceptualises approaches to…

Purpose: Empirical research on leadership for social justice is in progress in many parts of the world. The purpose of this paper is to explore principals' school-leadership journeys in response to social-justice issues caused by specific contextual changes at times of uncertainty. It seeks to answer the following key questions: What…

Reform efforts in schools have become increasingly focused on the nature and direction of teamwork in efforts to achieve sustained and systemic districtwide capacity for innovation and needed change. The six-year study reported in this article involved development, implementation, and assessment of a unique collaborative process for districtwide…

SITE's founder, Jerry Willis, was born in 1943. He died this year just prior to the thirtieth anniversary of the organization that he founded. Television, computers, and the Internet did not exist when Jerry was born. He was a visionary who saw the transformative possibilities of computers in education. He founded SITE to realize this potential.

The current models of teacher education in the Western world are still largely based upon the building of students' knowledge and skills using approaches similar to those designed for the assembly lines of the past. The prevailing model of schooling is still centered around the notion that schools are places young people go to watch their teacher…