This study involved the development, implementation, and assessment of a comprehensive schoolwide mailing program as a practical tool to communicate enthusiasm towards writing to children and actively engage them in letter writing. The author played the dual role of teacher-researcher and worked for one school year with one teacher from each grade…

Governments, schools, and communities throughout Australia are working to improve school attendance among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students using numerous strategies. Currently, however, little is known about the effectiveness of these strategies and the key factors which underpin programs and strategies which are successful. This…

Research has indicated the importance of evaluating the experiences related to developing e-portfolios (electronic portfolio) to contribute to the overall excellence in teaching and learning. Researchers (instructors) of the present study used an exit e-portfolios, a questionnaire and follow up interviews to describe development and evaluation of…

Demonstration shows are a popular form of chemical education outreach used to increase interest, engagement, and appreciation of chemistry. Although practitioners often include instructional elements, evaluation has been limited to children's attitudes toward science rather than their understanding of the underlying concepts presented. In 2006, we…

A recent Google search for information regarding performance pay in education produced 6.1 million results. This number should come as no surprise given the current level of interest in incentives as a popular reform option in public education. Supporters believe pay-for-performance programs encourage less effective teachers to improve and will…

New Leaders for New Schools created the Effective Practice Incentive Community (EPIC) initiative in 2006 to learn from educators driving achievement gains in high-need urban schools. EPIC identifies school leaders and teachers whose students are making significant achievement gains and financially rewards these educators in exchange for sharing…

A total of 33 sites, including states, school districts, charter school coalitions, and other education organizations make up Cohorts 1 and 2 of the Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF). These sites received funds beginning in the fall of 2006 and spring of 2007 to redesign compensation programs for teachers and principals. The U.S. Department of…

The purpose of this article is to identify an issue that impacts individuals and institutions on a seemingly individual basis but collectively affects numerous program participants and their communities. Specifically, this article is about the tension between the need to provide student support service programming with the need to advocate for the…

Making Consistent Judgments (MCJ) was a systemic professional development program designed to increase teachers' capacity to make consistent judgments about students' achievement of educational standards in government schools in Western Australia; the MCJ program was in operation from 2004 to 2007 (Department of Education and Training 2007; 2008).…

The Teaching Teachers for the Future (TTF) project engaged teacher educators from all Australian institutions in a professional learning network that provided targeted professional development and fostered collaboration within and between teacher education institutions and relevant teacher education partners to build capacity within each…

Increasing numbers of empirical studies and theoretical frameworks for preventing sexual violence are appearing in the research- and practice-based literatures. The consensus of this work is that although important lessons have been learned, the field is still in the early stages of developing and fully researching effective models, particularly…

The Young Mothers Support Group program was designed to engage pregnant teens and young mothers in a youth-driven program tailored to meet their identified needs. Central to the success of the program were the premises that young women would engage in healthy relationships with adults and peers within the program, and were able to actively…

Since 2004, Rhodes State College has been at the forefront of developing an institution-wide model of institutional effectiveness--Strategic and Institutional Effectiveness Planning System (SIEPS). A focus on both measuring mission effectiveness and strategic achievement led to development of a unique electronic application that tracks the direct…

Planning, implementing, and assessing a service-learning project can be a complex task because service-learning projects often involve multiple constituencies and aim to meet both the needs of service providers and community partners. In this article, Stufflebeam's Context, Input, Process, and Product (CIPP) evaluation model is recommended as a…

Even as the number of students attending college has more than doubled in the past forty years, it is still the case that nearly half of all college students in the United States will not complete their degree within six years. It is clear that much remains to be done toward improving student success. For more than twenty years, Vincent Tinto's…