Because polarization and demonization of the "other" are increasingly prevalent in today's America, there are limited opportunities for deep and informed engagement across lines of difference, particularly on college campuses. "Bridging the Gap: Dialogue across Difference" (BTG) is a 2-3 week January term immersive experience…

Students, teachers, and school leaders are seeking flexibility and supports to enable powerful, personalized learning experiences both inside and outside of the traditional classroom. In personalized learning, instruction is tailored to each student's strengths, needs, and interests--including enabling student voice and choice in what, how, when,…

Changes to general education curricula are taking place across the globe. From the Bologna Process in Europe to the Liberal Education and America's Promise initiative in the United States, colleges and universities are reforming what constitutes general education for their students. At the University of Dayton, such reforms took the shape of a…

Education programs across 19 states are piloting a performance-based assessment for teacher-candidates that potentially could serve as a common prelicensing measure for new teachers. Based on a test in use in about 30 education schools in California, the Teacher Performance Assessment includes a "teaching event" requiring teachers to…

The Forest Hills Local Schools board in Ohio had always been supportive of a 1-to-1 program, but it simply did not have the resources to buy every student a computer. The district had some laptops available, but only enough for about one out of every five students. So, when a teacher wanted to integrate technology into a lesson, the machines had…

Monarch High School in Boulder, Colorado, is one of 25 schools piloting the High School of Business program, an accelerated business administration program developed by Columbus, Ohio-based MBA"Research" and Curriculum Center. This article describes the program which uses a heavily project-based pedagogy to teach a curriculum modeled…

The purpose of this document is to describe the US ED growth model pilot program from its inception to the point at which the program was no longer a pilot and was opened up to all states. In addition, the paper is designed to help states in the process of planning to submit a growth model proposal. The information in this document is mostly…

College instructors and students participated in a pilot project at the University of Akron to enhance student learning through the use of a common teaching pedagogy, peer instruction. The teaching pedagogy was supported by the use of technology, an electronic personal response system, which recorded student responses. The authors report their…

"Gift of Tongues: Passing the Ohio Mathematics Graduation Test" examines the Ohio Graduation Mathematics Tests of 2004, 2005, and 2006 in the context of bilingual test takers at one of Cleveland's high schools and reports findings from a promising, bilingual pilot project in 2007 that may point to a new strategy for passing the…

This brief introduces "Community Colleges Broadening Horizons through Service Learning," the American Association of Community Colleges' (AACC's) fifth national Learn and Serve America grant project and describes its grantee college programs. The goals of this grant project are to build on established foundations to integrate service…

In this article, the author shares her journey with evidence-based reading instruction. Her experience with evidence-based reading instruction (as the adult basic education coordinator at Windham Adult Education in Windham, Maine) has been a journey of change both professionally and programmatically, and the students at Windham Adult Education are…

America's urban high schools are having trouble making sophomores, resulting in freshmen classes bulging with students repeating a grade. Research shows that these students are at high risk of failure and dropout. Urban districts have begun to respond to the notable "freshmen bulge" through school restructuring. This mixed-methods study…

Describes initiatives undertaken in Ohio vocational education in response to changes in state standards for high school graduation and college admission and the need for improvement in basic skills. (SK)

Offering hypertension screening within the Black community in a convenient, nonthreatening environment can aid in reduction of morbidity and mortality attributable to high blood pressure in Black men. This article describes a successful pilot program which used volunteer barbers to perform on-site hypertension screening for their customers. (IAH)

The rising number of individuals returning to communities from prison and jail represents one of the defining issues of time. Individuals reentering society face myriad challenges, not the least of which is securing viable employment; in addition, each individual has a unique set of experiences, needs and resources. This project stems from the…