Over the past two decades, there has been an increased focus on designing STEM learning experiences for primary and second-level students. We posit that for teachers to design rich learning experiences for their students, they must first have the opportunity to develop their own STEM knowledge and competences, either during their pre-service…

Purpose: Considering the relevance of education for sustainable development (SD) to enhancing engineers' abilities to contribute towards sustainability-related issues, this study aims to help understand the global context of the insertion of SD into engineering education and to provide guidelines to further evolve research and efforts towards…

Despite the growing body of literature investigating education abroad programs, there remains very limited empirical research examining the perspectives of local community members who interact with visiting students. The purpose of this qualitative case study is to explore the varying perspectives of residents within a community in Costa Rica that…

State aid for special education shapes local decisions about identifying students for special education, the programs and services to which students have access and in which students with disabilities are educated, and how local educators structure and administer their special education programs. The connection between state funding for special…

This empirical article examines the policies, perspectives, and practices of building and developing cross-border and transnational higher education (TNHE) programs, with special attention given to the international joint and dual degree programs in North America and Asia. Specifically, this paper reviews the historical, political, and social…

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…

Reading words and developing larger vocabularies are critical parts of reading proficiency, but these checkpoints do not have significance until young students grasp the meaning behind words. While teachers and the school culture can improve early reading proficiency, legislatures and state education agencies can support such efforts by…

PhD programs in the United States are increasingly marked by the rising influence of market-oriented dynamics. As a case in point, one of the primary objectives of the new PhD program offered at the University of South Dakota is to deliver a doctoral program through a flexible--or hybrid--format that is accessible to nontraditional as well as…

The Indiana Choice Scholarship Program has the potential to be the largest school voucher program in the country. Though the authorizing legislation capped enrollment in the program at 7,500 for its first year (the 2011-12 school year), that cap was increased to 15,000 for this year, and will be removed for all subsequent years. With careful…

Given the current economic constraints facing the country, school districts in the U.S. have been pushed to develop annual budgets through a new lens and to accept the reality that budget adoption is a complex, political process. Whether a school district is rich or poor, growing or declining in enrollment, serving a specialized population or…

The type and amount of student interaction with major socializing agents on campus--faculty and their peers--determine the impact of college on students. Much of the research on postsecondary education links the quality of peer interactions directly to student learning outcomes and satisfaction with the college experience, and Alexander Astin went…

In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina, the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States, forced the fall semester closure of Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. In the aftermath of this unprecedented storm, the Tulane leadership set forth a plan for renewal to secure the survival, recovery, and sustainability of the institution,…

This paper explores the background to and process of quality circles as well as the implications of circles for training. In the first section, the emergence and growth of quality circles in Japan and the United States are traced. Next, the theoretical and conceptual bases of quality circles are examined, while section 3 looks at implementation in…

Service learning is a teaching method used by business faculty to link the learning goals and objectives of an academic course with meaningful community service. Although service learning has been advanced in business education in the United States and other Western countries, little has been reported on its use outside the Western context. In…

A discussion of the literacy education needs of the Hispanic community in the United States provides a profile of the Hispanic population and offers a plan of action for educational programming. At 7 million, the illiterate Hispanic population comprises one-third of functionally illiterate Americans. This subgroup is diverse, with as much as half…