There is little doubt that the assessment and evaluation of student learning, as well as the assessment and evaluation of a teacher's pedagogical skills and curriculum, is of tremendous importance. Indeed, without any evidence that learning is taking place, why should a school district invest time and resources in a given subject area? Yet…

This article is written by two new professors teaching at a faculty of education and follows on the completion of their first two years of teaching. They taught both core and elective courses offered in their faculty of education pre-service program. This article is a critical review of action research and teacher preparation literatures. It will…

This paper provides an overview of contemporary information literacy research and practice. While the content is highly selective, the intention has been to highlight international and Australian developments which have achieved significant recognition, which are representative of similar trends in other places, or which are unique in some way.…

A movement known as the Universities of the Third Age (U3As) provides educational, cultural and social services for mature-age people in Australia and internationally. This paper focuses on the educational courses run by U3As and discusses two basic questions: What are the expectations of learners who enrol in these classes? and How can tutors…

Individuals with disabilities are underrepresented in postsecondary education; in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors; in graduate and post-doctoral work; and in faculty positions, particularly in STEM. Despite these lags behind their non-disabled counterparts, few organizations recruit persons with disabilities into…

Many educators are already knowledgeable about and skilled in best practices. And much of what is happening in developmentally appropriate programs exemplifies "brain compatible" practices. Being educated in the connections between best practices and brain compatibility is an important part of the knowledge base of early childhood educators. Just…

In this article we take a closer look at a developing university-community engagement project being undertaken between California State University, Fresno, and the City of Fresno. A history of the project is provided, along with a review of the relevant literature and a summary of what pieces of the puzzle we feel should be in place for a…

This article reports on a study of 40 primary school leaders from ten very successful primary schools who were interviewed in order to find out the skills, processes and practices that are required for the leadership of successful curriculum innovation in primary schools. Findings suggest that school leaders need to create an "ethos for…

This study aims to explore how leaders are helping to close gaps of attainment for minority ethnic pupils in English schools, and in particular those pupils who have English as an Additional Language (EAL) in the primary and secondary sector. This is a comparative study across selected schools using qualitative approaches to help gain an insight…

Supporting in-service teachers for successful integration of educational technologies into their teaching practices has been a challenge. While professional development in technology integration is found to help teachers gain technology skills and model good examples of using technology for teaching, they may fail to provide teachers with a clear…

Extensive Reading is a resource heavy technique used in second language acquisition in which language learners read large amounts of texts for enjoyment, with the expectation that they will improve their vocabulary and fluency as a result of exposure to the written language. Narrow Reading is a similar technique in which the texts have a common…

In January 2006 the Billings (Montana) Public Schools adopted a computer-assisted instruction (CAI) intervention aimed at helping students recover credits that they had attempted but had not attained. The author volunteered to teach the algebra component in his high school. Through the following seven semesters, he came to better understand the…

When done well, service-learning has strong value for all of its participants. But doing service-learning well is not easy since it relies on research from multiple domains, including: how people learn, how people develop social-emotional skills, and how people become civically engaged. This article discusses how to do service-learning well, as…

With a growing movement to re-connect children to nature, an understanding of the ability of environmental education (EE) programs to foster connectedness to nature is needed. The purpose of this exploratory quantitative study is to determine the effect of seven EE programs on participants' connectedness to nature. Results from the 385 children…

This study examined academic differences between students who attended 21st Century Community Learning Center (CCLC) programs frequently (60 or more days) and matched nonattendees during the 2008-2009 school year. Schools included in the study represented only those centers found to be implementing high-quality programming, as measured by a…