In October 2010, WestEd's Strategic Literacy Initiative (SLI) won an i3 "Validation" grant to scale up and validate the Reading Apprenticeship (RA) model in three core secondary content area classes: U.S. history, biology, and English language arts. SLI's proposal stated two goals. Goal 1: To transform academic literacy teaching and…

Preservice school library media specialists will implement the AASL Standards for the "21st Century Learner" in their new roles. Drafted in 2007, the Standards reflect principles which school library media specialist must impart to learners to prepare them to be knowledge consumers, producers, and communicators in global environments.…

The Detroit Healthy Youth Initiative is a 10-year partnership between the Detroit Public Schools (DPS) and Wayne State University (WSU) with the goal of improving the quality of school health and physical education programs throughout the city schools. Drawing on the experiences of WSU and DPS faculty, administrators, teachers, and project staff,…

This study reports on a district-wide research-based professional development (PD) that included 207 teachers and administrators. Data were collected from pre/post surveys, content analysis of the participants' wiki pages, and a follow-up questionnaire. Findings indicate that participants significantly improved their foundational and technical…

The National Center on Intensive Intervention (NCII) has a mission to build district and school capacity to implement intensive intervention that will improve reading, mathematics, and behavioral outcomes for students with disabilities in Grades K-12 who have severe and persistent learning and/or behavioral problems. The purpose of this document…

We present some key findings of a four-year, two-phase writing assessment project at Central Michigan University: Phase One (2002), a survey of faculty members (n=115) and subsequent focus groups (n=14) and Phase Two (2005), an evaluation of two samples of student writing (n=635 and 632). Major findings of Phase One reported here include the…

The purpose of this review of literature is to determine if the literature suggests that site-based management increase student achievement. Original research findings done on 19 Michigan Title I schools using the Bureaucracy Theory, Systems Theory, and Human Resource Development Theory was reviewed. Also, qualitative studies on superintendents…

Like many universities worldwide, the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa has joined the open educational resources (OER) movement, making a selection of teaching and learning materials available through its OER directory, UCT OpenContent. However, persuading and then supporting busy academics to share their teaching materials as OER…

The Delaware Enhanced Assessment Grant (DE EAG) project was funded by the U.S. Department of Education in 2006 as an initiative to assist 10 state departments of education (SDE) teams, and local school district and high school teams, in implementing a comprehensive and balanced learning and assessment system (CBAS) with a strong emphasis on a…

This paper presents the rationale and findings of a feasibility and process study of the Kin Keeper[superscript SM] Cancer Prevention Intervention. An observational cohort study design was implemented with African-American women in synergistic female family relationships. Community health workers (CHWs) from two Michigan public health programs…

Spurred by the "No Child Left Behind Act" of 2001, virtually every educational reform program now includes an accountability component that requires sound data collection and reporting (NCLB, 2002, section 101). Drawing from empirically based and theoretical literature in the field, this dissertation examines Adequate Yearly Progress…

The Kalamazoo Promise was announced in the fall of 2005, offering free college tuition at any public state college or university for graduates of the district who have gained acceptance to a postsecondary institution. This program was funded through the generous support of anonymous donors, and a federally-funded evaluation is underway to examine…

Purpose, scope, and method of study: Considered a significant strategy to foster school readiness and close the achievement gap, efforts to increase the education level of preschool teachers have garnered widespread support. Research pointing to the inadequate and outdated preparation of preschool teachers as well as a shortage of baccalaureate…

This study defined e-learning, the e-classroom, the e-course, learning management, learning management systems, instructional content management systems, and the Moodle system for managing e-courses. It also reviewed examples of some American schools and school districts that used the Moodle system in education and teacher training. The study…

Spatial visualization skills are vital to many careers and in particular to STEM fields. Materials have been developed at Michigan Technological University and Penn State Erie, The Behrend College to assess and develop spatial skills. The EnViSIONS (Enhancing Visualization Skills-Improving Options aNd Success) project is combining these materials…