With an increased focus on global competition, many educators and policymakers relied on international assessments such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to evaluate the ability of their education system to prepare students for the global economy. Students in the United States continued to demonstrate disappointing…

Schools in many different countries are increasingly expected to use data for school improvement. However, schools struggle with the implementation of data use, because building human capacity around data use in education has not received enough attention. Educators urgently need to develop data literacy skills for being able to use data. For…

This paper examines to what extent and how the data and results of PISA have been used for various education stakeholders and to what extent PISA affect educational policy and practices in Hong Kong. From the point of view of the government, PISA has played an important role in supporting and legitimising government educational reform since 2000.…

This article shares a school based inquiry project undertaken by staff in a special day school in the North Island of New Zealand supported by an external teacher educator/researcher from the United States. The inquiry project followed the Accessible Research Cycle (Jones, Whitehurst, & Egerton, 2012), which is a phased progression of…

This report considers how successful London's schools have been over the past decade and identifies potentially transferable components of the success story. There is much to be learned from the transformation undergone in London that is relevant to policymakers and educationalists worldwide, working in both high-income and low-income countries.…

This paper discusses how the process for IEP documentation was used in a training program for a group of young inexperienced teachers and teaching aides to effectively address the educational needs of children with diverse disabilities. Teachers at Kianh Centre in Vietnam received explicit instructions for writing effective functional individual…

Assessment is a complex function requiring an understanding of student learning, assessment principles, practices, and purposes of data to implement effective classroom assessment. The purpose of this study was to add to the growing base of knowledge about teachers' engagement with assessment data and their motivation for classroom assessment.…

Many countries are at varying stages of implementing competency-based education into their schools to equip youth with skills necessary to adapt to a changing world. Very little is known regarding practical approaches to incorporate competencies into school curriculum. This study examines five schools in Auckland, New Zealand from a variety of…

The aim of this guide is to stimulate professional reflection, dialogue and debate about learning and how to improve it, at this time of important curriculum change. It draws together themes, features and characteristics of effective improvement through self-evaluation, and descriptions of good practice. It is a reference point for teachers who…

A report is given of an international colloquy which offered the opportunity for representatives of 11 European countries to exchange views and experiences on further education and self-education of teachers. Discussions centered around five areas: (1) the science of education as a means of raising the effectiveness of the educational process and…

Staff development in higher education is discussed in these papers in terms of its definitions, scope, and future activities. Most of the papers were originally prepared for the working party on staff development at the Fourth International Conference on Higher Education, University of Lancaster (August 29-September 1, 1978). The first three…