This report prepared at the request of the Seychelles Ministry of Education presents a new model of schooling in Seychelles and makes a case for strengthening the Seychelles Institute of Distance and Open Learning. The new model proposes to leverage the best features of open schooling, e-learning, hybrid learning, and community tutoring to improve…

This case study, framed within a school-university partnership, highlights the tensions inherent to employing design-based approaches for educational change. The case illustrates core tensions between an abductive, open-ended, design-based approach to change versus more traditional (deductive/inductive) approaches to managing change in schools.…

This article describes the strategies employed to make a university-wide commitment to student success, persistence, and graduation rates. The shift in culture has made student success everybody's business, and there has been a high level of buy-in to the enterprise. The predictive tools that have been developed have given focus to serving those…

This paper frames the problem underlying the cross-cultural Organizing Curriculum Change (OCC) study of state-based curriculum-making. The paper discusses the increased use by states over the past two decades of the century-old instrument of the state-based curriculum and the tool of the curriculum commission. The paper contrasts the slender…

A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it as they interact regularly. Higher education leaders are attracted to CoPs because they are a peer-based model of learning with colleagues, which works well for professionals such as faculty. These authors identified…

This report shows how insights gained from system dynamics modeling and the U.S. STEM Undergraduate Model® can help inform the Navy's strategy to grow a robust civilian workforce that is strongly invested with Navy-relevant STEM skills and ready to contribute to the next generation of Naval innovation. This work positions the Navy to serve a…

Faced with rising demand for information about early childhood programs, states need to find tools and strategies to monitor the progress of and to identify high-quality early childhood programs. In response, REL Mid-Atlantic convened a regional workgroup for state personnel who work with the systems containing early childhood data. The workgroup…

The theme running consistently through this speech is that the supportive services to vocational education, to be effective, must be viewed in a sociological context. Further examination of the issue is considered from a social system perspective and from the individual behavior perspective. It is concluded that no problem as complicated as the…

This article presents an interview with J. Michael Ortiz, a member of the Aspen Institute's Commission on No Child Left Behind, on the issues concerning the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Aspen Institute's Commission is an independent panel that was established in 2006 to conduct a high-level review of the federal government's signature…

With new developments taking place in planning strategies for change in schools, new schemes and tactics are needed. Minneapolis Public Schools have developed the kind of organizational plan needed to find entry points into schools, systems for data gathering, and employment roles for research specialists. The Model for Local School Evaluation,…

Educational planning involves both the notions of ordering any unordered educational system and that of replanning an institutional and policy framework according to new criteria. Planning refers to that situation where there are relatively few or no constraints on the planning process from existing educational institutions or current policy…

This workbook develops basic strategic planning models and presents a step-by-step guide for those involved in a college or university's strategic planning process. The model contains 10 steps, from inception of the plan through the activities of review and revision after the strategic planning committee has completed its planning exercise and…

The changes necessary for creating a quality school can best be made in a positive organizational climate because any real change requires the active involvement of people in the organization, who will not participate unless they are highly satisfied with their work environment. Such an open, facilitating, nurturing environment can only be…

A proposal for developing models to enhance the teaching profession is described, along with the 1983-1984 activities of the Task Force on Excellence in Education of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU). The Task Force proposed that during the 1984-1985 academic year AASCU should conduct a competition among its…