Objective: To evaluate the impact of three types of social cognitive theory (SCT)-based elementary school classroom physical activity (PA) training on teachers' implementation rates, attitudes, knowledge and behaviour. Design: Key stakeholder focus groups informed development of phase II which took the form of a randomised controlled trial of…

High-impact educational practices support student and faculty learning and achievement. By creating an alternative structure through which students have access to these practices, and by investing resources to make that structure available to all students, Bryn Mawr College has been able to ensure that participation in high-impact practices occurs…

Superintendents and school boards must balance state and federal mandates, requirements of new legislation, and policy changes as they search for best practices in education that will result in increased student achievement. Pressure has increased, with an emphasis on high stakes testing and accountability since the implementation of the No Child…

In this paper a STEM Education Outreach (STEM-EO) Model for promoting strategic university outreach programming at Penn State University to the benefit of university, school district and community stakeholders is described. The model considers STEM-EO as a complex system involving overarching learning goals addressed within four outreach domains…

We report on the scaling up of a high school content literacy framework, Reading Apprenticeship, over a period of four years as part of the independent evaluation of an Investing in Innovation grant from the U.S. Department of Education to WestEd's Strategic Literacy Institute (SLI). Our goal was to understand the school processes that support…

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…

Many school districts are seeing a need to introduce technology education to students at the elementary level. Pennsylvania's Penn Manor School District is one of them. Pennsylvania has updated science and technology standards for grades 3-8, and after several conversations the author had with elementary principals and the assistant superintendent…

This report presents early implementation and operational lessons from the Supporting Healthy Marriage (SHM) evaluation. Funded by the Administration for Children and Families, SHM uses a rigorous research design to test the effectiveness of a new approach to improving outcomes for low-income children: strengthening the marriages and relationships…

Improving the quality of out-of-school time activities and creating effective learning environments is of keen interest to practitioners, funders and policymakers. Funded by The William Penn Foundation, "Quality Time After School" identifies characteristics of after-school activities that are linked to youth engagement and learning…

Describes the efforts of a teacher to create an after-school drama program where none existed before in a blue-collar area of Pennsylvania. Explains how an original production, "Voices from Middle School," was developed and performed through combining her after-school volunteer drama classes with an in-school poetry class. (PA)

This module is one in a series of six designed to help vocational educators develop skills needed to make use of the Vocational Technical Education Consortium of States materials and to develop and manage individualized instructional programs. Recommended for use by both pre- and inservice teachers and curriculum development specialist interns,…

BEN:LINCS (Bethlehem Education Network: A Local Instructional Network for Culture and Science), a Pennsylvania Testbed Project, attempts to demonstrate a sustainable model that supports network-based educational activities among schools, homes, libraries, museums, and local cultural organizations. The BEN:LINCS project envisioned a community-based…

Although the success of School reforms such as the School-to-Work Opportunities Act (STWOA) hinges on classroom teachers' implementation of career-related activities, few quantitative studies have examined teachers' implementation practices in STW programs. In this study, classroom teachers involved in a STW partnership in a Southwestern…

This guide was developed during a demonstration project conducted in three diverse, multiethnic Western Pennsylvania communities to use older adult tutors as mentors to improve Head Start parents' literacy skills and ability to develop their children's literacy. The guide is intended to facilitate tutors' learning about family literacy and to give…

A project was undertaken to develop a realistic survival skills curriculum in language arts for adult basic education (ABE) students that could be used with predischarge residents in institutions for mentally ill individuals in Pennsylvania. After identifying 28 predischarge residents at the Harrisburg State Hospital in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,…