Mentoring is recognized as supporting student success, is present in references to good pedagogical practices, but seems to be absent from the vast majority of Middle East/North African universities. In this article, we suggest that such an absence is due to mentoring not being adequately theorized within regional traditions; mentoring is seen as…

Competency-based education, also referred to as mastery-based, proficiency-based or performance-based education, is a system of education designed to equitably ensure all students develop the success skills they will need for college, career and life. Competency-based education is gaining momentum and visibility. Districts and schools turn to…

The ability to read proficiently is a comprehensive skill necessary for success at all academic levels. Students who consistently read below grade level continue to struggle throughout their school years with little chance of recovery. The administrative leaders of the Ocean View School District (a pseudonym) noticed a decline in reading scores…

Despite tremendous success in improving access and enrolment of pupils in the Ghanaian basic education system in recent times, learning outcomes still remain below expected levels. Through a systematic review of literature on international programmes and research on activity-based learning (ABL), this article highlights exemplary practices which…

This paper explores Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) for Schools, a local variant of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD's) influential PISA that not only assesses an individual school's performance in reading, mathematics and science against international schooling systems, but also promotes 17…

The Student Achievement Initiative (SAI) is the guiding framework for the Washington state community and technical college system's goals for student success. SAI emphasizes student momentum for college success by both building college readiness (such as basic skills gains and completion of precollege education, sometimes known as developmental…

This article analyzes the transfer and 15-year policy trajectory of Colombia's "global best practice" "Escuela Nueva in Brazil." This program, initially transferred to Brazil in 1997 with the help of the World Bank, was largely unknown for the first decade of its life span. Then, between 2008 and 2011, "after" the…

'Extending the welcome', a symposium convened in March 2019, brought together participants from a dozen countries across public, private and academic spheres to discuss the education gap faced by refugees and displaced people and what universities can do to help bridge that gap. Through a discussion of findings and best practice from already…

Supplemental instruction (SI) has proven highly effective at improving success rates in high-risk first and second-year courses, in part because peerled SI sessions inculcate best-practice study skills in a specific learning context which provides opportunities for skill mastery. A successful SI program in the Faculty of Science at the University…

Quality Matters (QM) has been transforming established best practices and online education-based research into an applicable, scalable course level improvement process for the last decade. In this article, the authors describe QM as an ongoing design-based research project and an educational input for improving online education.

This paper presents a case study analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of using project-based learning (PBL) combined with collaborative learning (CL) and industry best practices, integrated with information communication technologies, open-source software, and open-source hardware tools, in a specialized microcontroller and embedded systems…

John Muir Elementary School in San Francisco is like countless other schools in cities across the United States. The student body comprises mostly lower income, African American and Latino students who--despite being just as intelligent as their white and Asian counterparts--traditionally underachieve on many academic measures. Talented,…

Over the past 15 years, knowledge of the afterschool field has grown substantially. A large body of evidence exists that confirms quality afterschool programs help children become more engaged in school, reduce their likelihood of taking part in at-risk behaviors or acting out in school, and help raise their academic performance. A greater…

The following profiles address how the state departments of education are helping educators prepare for and implement their states' new college- and career-readiness standards and aligned assessments, through professional learning. SREB researchers examined each state's major professional development efforts around its new standards in order to…

This report takes a comprehensive look at achievement for low-income promising learners--past, present, and future. At its core, it challenges the nation to move beyond its near-singular focus of achieving minimum performance for all students, to identifying and developing the talent of all students who are capable of high achievement, including…