As transformative reforms like the Common Core State Standards and educator evaluation roll out amidst a rapidly changing demographic landscape, the need for getting high-quality research on timely topics into the hands of practitioners grows all the more urgent. While rigor and relevance need not be a question of "either/or", but rather…

Advances in technology are enabling dramatic changes in education content, delivery, and accessibility. Throughout history, new technologies have facilitated the exponential growth of human knowledge. In the early twentieth century, the focus was on the use of radios in education. But since then, innovators have seen technology as a way to improve…

The Afterschool Alliance, in partnership with MetLife Foundation, is proud to present the final issue brief in its latest series of four issue briefs examining critical issues facing middle school youth and the vital role afterschool programs play in addressing these issues. This brief explores afterschool and digital learning. At the core of…

This book, for the first time ever, critically examines the role of full service and extended schools. The authors draw on their extensive international evaluations of this radical new phenomenon to ask: (1) What do extended or full service schools hope to achieve, and why should services based on schools be any more effective than services…

For decades, for-profit educational provision has been tolerated, often grudgingly. In the world of charter schooling, for-profit providers are lambasted and sometimes prohibited. In higher education, for-profit institutions have grown rapidly, enrolling millions of nontraditional students and earning enmity, suspicion, and now investigative and…

"Transforming Classroom Culture" is an anthology of original work authored by diverse faculty who work in a variety of New England college and university settings--private and public, racially homogeneous and diverse. The authors focus on institutional contexts that promote innovation in teaching practice, faculty identity as a resource…

Tyack & Tobin (1994, p. 454) describe that the "grammar of schooling," like the shape of classrooms, has remained remarkably stable over the decades. This has frustrated generations of reformers who have fought to change standardized organizational traditions. Typically school reform has taken the form of innovations in education.…

Today's classrooms reflect a full spectrum of abilities, interests and cultures. In part due to standardized testing's influence on the school curriculum and the pace at which students must move through the coursework, meeting the needs of individual students during the school day is challenging. Many students are falling behind and, as a result,…

"Character," "creativity," "real-world problem solving," "communication skills," "teaming," and "leadership" are some of the skills and values that will be expected of graduates. In the conversation about what constitutes a high-quality 21st century school, however, the more complex question is about the varied paths schools might take to achieve…

Recognizing the potential of talented students, dedicated educators, and innovative leaders, NCSSSMST and Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, convened a Roundtable for NCSSSMST STEM Leaders at Research Triangle Park, North Carolina on April 28-29, 2011. The product of the Roundtable will be a blueprint for STEM research in high schools that…

This essay is a critique of the scientific and policy rationales for transnational standardization. It analyzes two examples of policy export: early childhood standards in one of North America's oldest Indigenous communities and the ongoing development of international standards for university teaching. It examines calls for American education to…

A level 6 module was developed in order to implement innovative assessment strategies and encourage higher level learning. The module tutor (one of this paper's authors) was seconded from teaching duties (40%) to the University's academic development unit to work on the module transformation. The rationale for the redesign of the assessment…

The present article seeks to encourage reflection on the characteristics and considerations when implementing Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in a diverse context such as the Colombian one. Initially, the general aspects of an innovative and changing education in a globalized world are presented by stating the need to innovate.…

Russian society is up in arms over innovations in the sphere of education. It looks as if, for example, Russians reacted to the universal adoption of the Unified State Examination more emotionally than they did to the devaluation of savings, the precipitous division into the poor and the wealthy, and the destruction of the country's industrial…

Universities in Australia and worldwide, are building a new generation of learning and teaching spaces which are designed to encourage and support active and collaborative modes of learning and teaching. However, there is little evidence to show that students will recognise the contribution these spaces make to their learning. Temple (2008) argued…