This keynote address discusses previous and ongoing efforts to reduce the persistent gap between research and practice in social work and offers recommendations for further bridging that gap. Key among those recommendations is the need to conduct descriptive outcome studies of efforts to adapt research-supported interventions in everyday practice…

Catherine Nehring is a passionate advocate for inclusion and presents a rationale for creating an inclusive Montessori school and details the considerations and guidelines for creating such a school. Beginning with the United Nations Resolution (Article 24) and carefully explaining Montessori's history with "abnormal children," Catherine…

This paper reports findings from a multi-year study of the scale-up of Reading Apprenticeship (RA), an approach to improve academic literacy by helping teachers provide the support students need to be successful readers in the content areas. WestEd's Strategic Literacy Initiative (SLI), began developing the program in 1995 and has since reached…

The Grantmakers for Education (GFE) Institute attracted more than 60 grantmakers from national, corporate, community and family foundations, with interests in systems and programs from early learning through postsecondary completion. And while attendees arrived with diverse experiences and expertise in grantmaking to support policy change, they…

Higher education, a setting devoted to the enhancement of learning, inquiry, and development, continues to lack effective development for faculty. Mentoring relationships seek to provide enhancement, yet few mentoring programs exist. This literature review examines forms of mentoring, its benefits, barriers to implementation, means for successful…

Frequently curriculum implementation procedures consist of little more than teachers receiving descriptions of subject matter, definitions of new or technical terminology, and/or outlines detailing the surface steps of an instructional process. This case study analysis of how two high school teachers adapted some new curriculum features into their…

A common theme in educational change literature is that principals do not truly understand the change process and therefore cannot successfully implement change. This paper presents findings of a study that examined the change processes that Colorado principals utilized when initiating and implementing change in their buildings. The study also…

A view of situated instructional development (ID) is presented which incorporates a constructivist, situated view of learning and expertise, while at the same time viewing the ID process itself in situated terms. The purposes of this paper are to offer several reflections about the relationship between design and implementation of learning…

During the 1970s, evaluation researchers realized that adoption of a curricular innovation does not ensure its implementation. This paper asks which strategies of educational policy and external support are relevant for implementing curricular innovations, particularly in the Netherlands. The first three sections discuss why and for whom…

The Canadian Standards and Guidelines for Career Development Practitioners have become a means to unify the career development community; assess the professional competencies of career practitioners; market the knowledge and skills sets of practitioners; and raise the profile of career development. This paper provides background information on the…

This paper describes the implementation and evaluation of a social competence promotion program conducted in the sixth grade of a middle school. The need to increase social competence within the school arose from the results of enumerative and stakeholder data collected at the school. This paper outlines the steps of the needs assessment, program…

All 24 of Maryland's county school systems participated in a voluntary school improvement program that involved the adoption and implementation of one or more of four research-based, instructional processes: Active Teaching, Mastery Learning, Student Team Learning, and Teaching Variables. A 5-year study of this program produced findings on a…

Initial difficulties in the process of teaching 6 first-grade teachers to use reciprocal teaching in their classes, and the disappointing outcomes of the instruction, led researchers to several conclusions. Researchers realized that the beliefs teachers held about the nature of knowledge and the process of knowledge acquisition had a powerful role…

This study evaluated the effect of a comprehensive training program for teachers based on Madeline Hunter's Instructional Theory Into Practice (ITIP). To examine the question of implementation, teachers in the first through fourth grades in Napa Valley elementary schools were observed teaching two reading and two mathematics classes before and…

Educational policy does not always translate into programs that are consistent with the policymakers' original intentions. This paper presents findings of a case study that followed the course of a policy developed at the state level to teacher practice at the classroom level. Set in a western state, the study collected data through document…