This systematic literature review explored the importance of professional development (PD) for educators working with gifted students. Findings highlighted the need for PD to improve teacher knowledge, skills, efficacy, and student outcomes, especially considering the heterogeneously grouped classrooms, unique student needs, and lack of…

Background: Italy is internationally known as a Country with a longstanding "tradition" of inclusive education. Objective: Aim of the paper is to provide a frame on the educational policies that, since 1970s, have steered the school system according to a "fully inclusive" model, highlighting the instruments of teaching-learning…

Extension provides personalized educational services collectively known as individual contact teaching (ICT), yet these services often are not evaluated. This article presents results from pilot testing of an approach for evaluating ICT. Extension representatives and clientele provided data on ICT events, primarily office consultations and…

In Europe, doctoral education systems have been systematically reformed. These reforms are aimed at improving the quality of research and the competitiveness of European countries. In Finland, the reform project of doctoral education started vigorously in the mid-1990s which has contributed significantly to the emergence of more structured…

Seven district improvement initiatives were implemented in 2011-12 in the Wake County Public School System (WCPSS). All were well designed and coordinated, with common goal setting processes and use of common monitoring tools. All initiatives either met or partially met 2011-12 goals. Some were more successful in showing student outcomes, with the…

While there are lots of books with information on why and how to differentiate instruction, here at last is a book that gets to the heart of why some efforts to differentiate flop while others lead to sweeping, positive results. When it's your job to support differentiated instruction in a single school or systemwide, you need the guidance from…

Discusses three basic assumptions from which individualized instruction is derived and three critical attributes which can define it. Some problems accompanying the development of individualized instruction are considered and five signs of educational development resulting from the use of individualized instruction are outlined. (RK)

A search for a method of measuring progress in a system of individualized instruction became the basis for the rating profile described in this article. (Author/RK)

Describes the consequences of the implementation of several commercially produced individualization systems on teacher beliefs, practices, and on pupil achievement and attitude. (Author/RK)

Competency-based educational programs are here to stay. Here the author describes the program underway in his school system. (Editor/RK)

After listing 20 ways in which mathematics instruction has been individualized in the past, the author discusses principles which should be used in evaluating the effectiveness of educational programs. He argues that individualization itself is neither good nor bad; programs must serve the educational needs of students. (SD)

This response to a previous article comparing guidelines for developmentally appropriate practice in the fields of early childhood education and early intervention/special education stresses the importance of individualizing application of principles and the need to look beyond effectiveness and efficiency as dimensions for evaluating practice.…

The intent of the evaluation studies reported here was two-fold: (1) to determine the promising practices of three alternative schools in Greater Cleveland, and (2) to determine which of those practices identified as promising would be feasible for incorporation into the public schools. Each substudy includes an overview, a description of the…

Details evaluation of effectiveness of the Montessori Movable Alphabet in successive exercises to build preschoolers' knowledge about written English. Describes preliminary activities, movable alphabet introduction, dictation, expanded usage, object/picture use, vowel addition, vowel combination, blends, phonetic phrases, H-digraphs, long vowels,…

This document reprints a series of articles appearing in the Parsippany, New Jersey, "Daily Record" on October 25-30, 1987 and November 9, 1987. The series stresses that the New Jersey special education system has vastly improved from what existed prior to the 1975 Education for All Handicapped Children Act, but that the system still…