This study highlights the importance of clear communication in fostering career readiness. Students exhibit higher motivation on achievement tests when they understand the value of an assessment and are able to familiarize themselves with the exam prior to testing. Increased communication regarding the work requirements of local employers can…

Guidelines for teaching California's students have changed dramatically in recent years, as state leaders have adopted new academic standards, curriculum frameworks, and instructional materials lists in an attempt to better prepare students for college and career. However, adopting high-quality standards and curriculum materials does not guarantee…

The Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) is the nation's first nutrition education program and remains at the forefront of educational efforts to reduce nutrition insecurity of low-income families and youth today. Funded by the USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), EFNEP supports program participants' efforts…

This teaching brief describes an innovative multi-institutional initiative through which integrated student groups from different courses collaborate on a common course project. In this integrated group project, students are asked to design a decentralized manufacturing organization for a company that will manufacture industrial Proton-Exchange…

Since 2004, we have offered a postgraduate training program in aging research for social work faculty from across the country. The overarching goal of the program is to expand the pool of social work faculty engaged in aging research. This, in turn, will reinvigorate participants' teaching; prepare them to update aging-related content in the…

This article is a follow-up to Mary Devin's report on the collaborative efforts required to create the "Kansas Educational Leadership Institute" in 2010. The Kansas Educational Leadership Institute (KELI) moved from planning to implementation on March 30, 2011, as a statewide systematic support system for the recruitment, development,…

Residency models for education in the medical profession have existed for many years. Nationwide, policies are being implemented to bring this model to the field of teacher preparation. How this plays out within education programs is less researched, and there is a need to document the transition from traditional teacher education, that is,…

This article describes the creation of the Master of Science of Computer Science and Information Systems at University of North Carolina Wilmington. The creation of this graduate degree was funded by the Sloan Foundation as a new type of program, the Professional Master's. The program was designed with significant industry input, and is truly…

American businesses and industries have long identified shortages in key career and technical areas--some of these areas require two- or four-year college degrees, whereas others simply require industry certifications. Career and technical education (CTE) has the potential to play a central role in filling these gaps. The current Carl D. Perkins…

This paper presents the development and implementation of a professional development workshop series on integrating mobile phones into science teaching for a group of teachers in Sri Lanka. The series comprised a 3-day Planning Workshop followed by implementation of the planned lessons in real classrooms and a subsequent 1-day Reviewing Workshop.…

The article introduces a Czech environmental education middle school program focused on helping students develop place attachment to their community and on increasing their interest in natural area in their region. The evaluation applied a mixed approach combining pretesting/posttesting of the students (N = 158), two group interviews with selected…

This study describes an evaluation of a theory-based trajectory for professional development called FeTiP (Feedback-Theory into Practice) that aims to have an observable effect on teacher classroom behavior. FeTiP is a multicomponent trajectory for professional development and combines several types of interventions. Its goal is to help teachers…

Never before have more children lived away from their home countries. Given the unique social, emotional, and academic needs of children who have migrated, school psychologists must be well prepared to meet these growing demands. Consequently, school psychology training programs must invest in the preparation of culturally competent future school…

Project GOAL is a systematic dropout prevention model including individual and peer-mediated group interventions for at-risk students. This article provides an overview of the Project GOAL model and describes a 2-year experimental pilot study of Project GOAL with a cohort of eighth-and ninth-grade students in a low-income school district in the…

The gap in achievement in mathematics between at-risk students and their more advantaged counterparts is a persistent problem of the U.S. education system. Although some research-based curricula and pedagogy have demonstrated promise in supporting students from diverse backgrounds to develop conceptual understanding and procedural fluency in…