Coaches are trusted advisors, information conduits, sounding boards, and advocates who facilitate institutional change. This report summarizes findings from the first five years of the Student Success Center Network's Coaching Program, focusing particularly on the most recent phase that engaged directly with Centers in four states (California,…

In this article, we describe the self-directed change made by a rural elementary school in response to a data-based examination of its service-delivery model that revealed its lowest performing students were spending most of their time with the school's least qualified staff. This mixed-method case study describes (a) why and how the school…

This handbook provides a global overview of the design, implementation and assessment of academic development centers within higher education institutions. The current nature of our complex, rapidly changing world makes it imperative that colleges and universities worldwide find ways to educate their students in new and better ways: this is…

University-based teacher education faces intensifying pressure to prove its effectiveness. This has prompted renewed interest in program redesign. In this article, we argue that enacting meaningful redesign requires university-based teacher educators to learn new ways of thinking and acting not only with teacher candidates but also with their…

Youth service professionals in various settings across the United States are responsible for preparing youth and youth adults, ages 12 to 25, to be successful in employment, postsecondary education, and adult life. Whether they work in the public workforce development system or other public agencies (e.g., child welfare, juvenile justice, mental…

There has been a proliferation of high school reform models and interventions over the past few decades aimed at improving the nation's high schools, including increasing graduation requirements, introducing technology to classrooms, grouping ninth-grade students into their own "academies," reorienting the curriculum toward particular…

This chapter describes a model for continuous improvement that guides the work of the National Center on Scaling Up Effective Schools, or NCSU. NCSU is a research and development center funded by the Institute for Education Sciences, the research arm of the United States Department of Education. At the core of the Center's work is an innovative…

The University of Minnesota Extension Center for Youth Development made an organizational decision in 2011 to invest in a system-wide approach to implement youth program quality into the 4-H program using the Youth Program Quality Assessment (YPQA) tool. This article describes the four key components to the Minnesota Youth Program Quality…

Every year, new teachers collectively spend about $4.8 billion on their training requirements, nearly all of which goes to teacher preparation programs. Unfortunately, it is unclear whether that is money well spent. Despite decades of research and ongoing calls to improve the quality of teacher training, we still do not know how to sculpt an…

The Authors@UF program series emerged to showcase the scholarship and creativity of faculty, creating an intellectual forum within the academic library, and providing informal, extra-curriculum, academic engagement between students and faculty outside the classroom. This article identifies steps to launch an author program, and considerations in…

With research indicating that upwards of 50 percent of all new entering postsecondary education students are placed into remedial education and that students placed into remedial education are less likely to earn a postsecondary credential, policymakers and postsecondary leaders alike have committed themselves to transforming remedial education in…

Obtaining competitive advantage has become a recurrent necessity, in successful organisational management. Nowadays, intangibles represent an excellent opportunity to attain these advantages. Given its social impact, the organisational image is one of the most important intangibles to work with. In this research, a model based on the determination…

Planning from a strategic perspective has been a mainstay of organizational management for decades. Founded in the private sector, strategic planning is now embraced by the nonprofit world as a catalyst for sound resource allocation, transformative decision making, and motivating staff. Student affairs professionals who think, plan, and act…

Today's nationwide focus on college completion is central to both individual and societal success. For individuals, attaining a credential has become essential to earn a livable wage and support a family. In addition, as each person's educational attainment increases, so does his or her capacity to contribute to the economy, his or her community,…

A key but often overlooked aspect of intentional, out-of-school-time programming is the integration of a guiding theoretical framework. The incorporation of theory in programming can provide practitioners valuable insights into essential processes and principles of successful programs. While numerous theories exist that relate to youth development…