This is the first published study of the impact of the higher education sector on the English regions. This study presents key economic features of UK higher education in the academic year 2007/08 and those aspects of its contribution to the nine English regions that can be readily measured. The sector is analysed as a conventional industry,…

Current state and federal reform initiatives rely heavily on the ability of multiple stakeholders to access and use information from statewide longitudinal data systems (SLDSs) to improve student achievement. State policymakers have indicated through reform plans that states are best positioned to achieve this goal by developing and implementing…

The existing literature on learning organizations emphasize that leadership and strong organizational culture are central to their successful development. Whereas schools continue to face government control, accountability, and financial restraints, they are also working diligently to engage in ongoing school improvement practices to provide…

Mentoring and induction support influence novice special education teachers' determination to remain in teaching. Those with high levels of support tend to report greater job manageability and success in teaching challenging students. They also tend to feel better about their preparedness to teach, knowledge of pedagogical content, and ability to…

The University of Florida (UF) established a Strategic Communications Planning Committee in May 2009 to coordinate a campuswide effort to promote strategic communications planning, strengthen the university's brand, unify key themes and messages, maximize use of available research and resources, and identify and propagate best practices and…

Merit pay programs for educators -- sometimes referred to a "pay for performance" -- attempt to tie a teacher's compensation to his/her performance in the classroom. While the idea of merit pay for classroom teachers has been around for several decades, only now is it starting to be implemented in a growing number of districts around the…

The purpose of this study was to determine teacher perceptions of the impact on instructional practice when using a complex, standards-based performance evaluation system. The study used expectancy theory to investigate teacher expectancy (did they believe they could enhance their practice to the identified program standards?), instrumentality…

An overview of a course on modeling and simulation offered at the Nanotechnology Engineering undergraduate program at the University of Waterloo. The motivation for having this course in the undergraduate nanotechnology curriculum, the course structure, and its learning objectives are discussed. Further, one of the computational laboratories…

This study was designed to determine the value of the Southern Region Cooperative Extension Program Leadership Network in the United States. Of particular interest was determining the value added by the network for individual extension administrators, their state organizations, and the southern region. The researchers conducted a series of focus…

Educational transformation in higher education places new demands on academics, especially in terms of shifting from traditional methods of teaching and learning to the application of innovative methods. Whereas outcomes-based education leans towards a philosophy, problem-based learning (PBL) offers a structured methodology in which teaching and…

This article describes the development of an undergraduate interdisciplinary global citizenship program. The process of program development was guided by the core belief that students need not only information and skills, but the tools to develop their own individual citizenship in today's world. Using document analysis, interviews with key…

Dyad training, where trainees learn in pairs but ultimately perform individually, has been shown to be an effective method for training some skills. The effectiveness of this approach, however, may be tied to the type of task to be trained and the quality of the interaction in the dyad. We report two studies on the effectiveness of dyad training…

Purpose: Guided Care (GC) is a model of health care for multimorbid older adults that is provided by a registered nurse who works with the patients' primary care physician (PCP). The purpose of this study was to determine whether GC improves patients' primary caregivers' depressive symptoms, strain, productivity, and perceptions of the quality of…

Existing research provides little insight into the relative merits of universal programs and those targeted to specific groups. While there have been several recent studies of the short-term effects of universal preschool programs in the U.S., there is no evidence to date on long-term consequences. Some studies suggest that Head Start has lasting…

In this article, the authors recall how the Academy in Manayunk adopted the famous Sally Smith's club methodology. They share how the influence of Smith pushed the school faculty and staff to create a school that focuses on the individual child and celebrates the unique talents and interests that each brings to the learning community. It is based…