During the 2001 summer holidays, the main Social Science classroom at St Ursula's College, a Catholic Secondary Girls' school of 740 pupils in Toowomba, Queensland was renovated. A mini-computer laboratory of four nests of computers was incorporated into the traditional teaching space. (See Diagram 1 and photograph). This room was named the…

Over the past decade many university-based teacher education programs and school districts have forged partnerships creating restructured, collaborative programs aimed at improving teaching and learning for credential candidates, as well as the children that they serve. According to data from the California Department of Education, progress is…

In September 1998, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) established a 1-year task force to review the NCES's role concerning lifelong learning. The eight-member task force established a working definition of lifelong learning ("a process or system through which individuals are able and willing to learn at all stages of life,…

In the last decade, the Boston Public Schools has undergone critical reforms that have been of intense interest to school leaders and policymakers throughout the country. Under the leadership of superintendent Thomas Payzant, the Boston schools implemented extensive reform strategies that yielded notable results. Fittingly, at the end of Payzant's…

"Sound Foundations," a literacy curriculum designed to teach phonological awareness to preliterate children, focuses exclusively on phoneme identity (that is, different words can start and end with the same sound). It works from the principle that phonemic awareness is necessary but not sufficient to reading, which depends on the…

Since its founding in 1875, Brigham Young University (BYU) has served a mission defined by its sponsoring institution which includes elements of character and spirituality (affective domain) in addition to the intellectual (cognitive domain). However, it is only since the establishment of the Office of Institutional Assessment and Analysis…

The idea of literature circles is not new; however, it is hardly adapted in a second language classroom. In Taiwan, using literature circles to teach a second/foreign language is even less seen. The two college teachers-researchers reported their experiences of trying out literature circles in a JFL (Japanese as a Foreign Language) and an EFL…

Many test-based accountability systems, including the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), place great weight on the numbers of students who score at or above specified proficiency levels in various subjects. Accountability systems based on these metrics often provide incentives for teachers and principals to target children near current…

"Making the Grade: Online Education in the United States, 2006--Midwestern Edition" is based on data collected for the fourth annual report on the state of online education in U.S. Higher Education. Supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and based on responses from over 500 Midwestern colleges and universities, this year's study,…

Science educators have generally agreed that understanding the atom concept is the basis of science education. However, the numerous research studies have shown that many students at all educational levels have difficulties understanding this concept. This study was developed under three headings. The first was to identify misconceptions that…

Using random assignment of students to two intervention groups and a comparison school sample, the researchers evaluated a three-group school-based violence prevention program. The three groups were (1) a whole-school intervention, (2) whole-school, cognitive-behavioral and cultural enrichment training, and (3) no violence prevention. The…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention program aimed to develop fair play behaviours in a school Olympic Education program. One hundred and twenty six, 5th-grade students from 4 elementary schools participated in this study, 66 of which were in the experimental group and 60 in the control group. The results…

In many ways, science classrooms and school library media centers are parallel universes struggling with their own reform issues and with documenting their own positive impacts. As the trend toward data-driven decisions grows in the school setting, it is increasingly important for every component of the learning environment to have demonstrable…

In this article we report assessment results from two studies in an ongoing design experiment intended to provide a single school system with a sequence of secondary school level (ages 14-18) computer technology courses. In our first study, we share data on students' learning as a function of the required introductory course and their pre-course…

This study evaluates the ability of a safer sex televised public service announcement (PSA) campaign to increase safer sexual behavior among at-risk young adults. Independent, monthly random samples of 100 individuals were surveyed in each city for 21 months as part of an interrupted-time-series design with a control community. The 3-month…