This exploratory study investigates the impacts of industry-based externships for K-12 teachers, and reports teachers' perspectives on how these experiences influenced K-12 classroom practices. The program of focus in this research study is the Educators in Industry: K-12 Externship Program. For four weeks in the summer, teacher-participants are…

School superintendents' role has shifted from the traditional emphasis on managerial aspects to one on instructional leadership (on teaching and learning issues) achieved by generating collaborative learning opportunities at the both school and district levels. Whereas collaborative learning processes in schools have generally been associated with…

This second report of an ongoing evaluation of "The Wallace Foundation's Principal Pipeline Initiative" describes the six participating school districts' activities in school leader preparation and support and analyzes their progress over two years. The evaluation, conducted by "Policy Studies Associates" and the "RAND…

This report describes a problem based learning project focusing on the cultural elements of a high performing school district. Current literature on school district culture provides numerous cultural elements that are present in high performing school districts. With the current climate in education placing pressure on school districts to perform…

These proceedings contain the papers of the 13th International Conference on Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age (CELDA 2016), October 28-30, 2016, which has been organized by the International Association for Development of the Information Society (IADIS), co-organized by the University of Mannheim, Germany, and endorsed by the…

Current science assessments typically present a series of isolated fact-based questions, poorly representing the complexity of how real-world science is constructed. The National Research Council asserts that this needs to change to reflect a more authentic model of science practice. We strongly concur and suggest that good science assessments…

Students benefit from collaborative learning activities, but they do not automatically reach desired learning outcomes when working together (Fischer, Kollar, Mandl, & Haake, 2007; King, 2007). Learners need instructional support to increase the quality of collaborative processes and individual learning outcomes. The core challenge is to find…

For the twenty-seventh year, the Research and Theory Division of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) is sponsoring the publication of these Proceedings. Papers published in this volume were presented at the National AECT Convention in Chicago, Illinois. The Proceedings of AECT's Convention are published in two…