When students exhibit control and employ a strategic plan of action over a situation they are said to be demonstrating agency (Bandura, 2001). The current work is comprised of two studies designed to investigate how agency manifests within students' choice patterns and ultimately influences self-explanation quality within the game-based system…

Imagine being able to access all known information about an insect species--whether it was discovered 100 years or 100 days ago--with one touch of the screen. Picture a world in which you can not only see Smithsonian objects online but also hear them and watch them in motion. Or imagine learning that Smithsonian astrophysicists discovered a new,…

Every community has strong teachers who help their students learn to high levels. But far too often low-income students and students of color are short-changed when it comes to teacher quality. Federal law requires states to end these disparities. But states, recognizing that most hiring, compensation, and promotional decisions, not to mention…

The Illinois State Board of Education's 2015 Comprehensive Strategic Plan is the agency's 11th such report as required by Public Act 93-1036. The first plan focused on ISBE's three primary goal areas: enhancing literacy, improving educator quality for all children, and expanding data-driven management and school support practices. Since 2005,…

This article draws on data from three multicultural New Zealand primary schools to reconceptualize principals' roles as leaders for learning. In doing so, the writers build on Sinnema and Robinson's (2012) article on goal setting in principal evaluation. Sinnema and Robinson found that even principals hand-picked for their experience fell short on…

Purpose: A common strategy used in school improvement efforts is a mandated process of formal planning, yet little is known about the quality of plans or the relationship between plan quality and implementation. This mixed-methods article investigates plan quality, factors associated with plan quality, and the relationship between plan quality and…

The implementation of the Malaysian National Education Blueprint in 2012 has expanded headmasters' responsibilities and roles in managing schools. The goal is to stabilize and strengthen the primary school education system, which brings tremendous pressure to bear on the headmasters charged with managing schools, especially in managing the school…

Relationships are key to the success of everything higher education hopes to accomplish, from recruiting the next class to retaining them, guiding them to graduation, creating successful alumni, and fostering satisfied donors. Creation of those relationships can be engaged and facilitated by the technology, communications tools, and ideas…

How do schools maintain momentum with change and enter new cycles of growth when they are attempting to do things differently? This article draws on a two-year evaluation of the "Positive Behaviour for Learning School-Wide" initiative to identify key factors that enabled schools to engage in a long-term and iterative change process.…

Increasingly, school leaders recognize the need for writing instruction to become a schoolwide priority. The writers' workshop approach that was popularized 30 years ago is still relevant; it is still important to give students protected time to write, opportunities to address topics and audiences that matter, and timely feedback. Recent research…

This paper studies the globalization of higher education in context of Pakistan. Pakistan is following the policy of internationalization of higher education that gained momentum since 2002 after the formation of HEC. The outbound ratio of students is increasing with a fast pace. However, the inflow of international students is becoming vital.…

The Ministry of Advanced Education provides leadership and direction for the world class postsecondary education and training system in British Columbia. Through a range of public and private post-secondary institutions, the Ministry has played a key role in ensuring B.C. has the skilled workers needed to capitalize on economic opportunities and…

This annual report describes Utah System of Higher Education's progress in the 2015-2016 academic year in the following areas: (1) Strategic plan; (2) Enrollment and completion; (3) Paying for college; (4) Funding higher education; (5) College preparation; (6) Concurrent enrollment and math; (7) Outreach and access; and (8) Industry and the…

At KIPP Comienza Community Prep--an elementary school in Huntington Park, California, where 94 percent of students qualify for free lunch, and more than 60 percent are English language learners--most kindergarteners start out well below pre-reading levels. In 2015, however, just a few years after these students walked in the school doors unable to…

Graduate education plays a central role in advancing the Nation's science and engineering research enterprise. It is also increasingly the means by which the Nation develops a diverse and highly technical Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) professional workforce. The view that graduate education in STEM disciplines is an…