As one of Canada's 13 distinct jurisdictions, Ontario is a national leader in developing a competency-based postsecondary education system. Hindered by challenges of a disaggregated system of policy actors in system design, quality assurance and credit transfer, sweeping change has not occurred. Instead, various bodies with operational powers over…

Building on an expanded concept of mutual adaptation, this chapter explores a distinctive and successful aspect of International Baccalaureate's effort to scale up, as they moved to expand their programs and support services in Title I schools. Based on a three-year, mixed-methods study, it offers a case where we see not only local adaptations…

After-school programs (ASP) are a long-standing activity historically facilitated by organizations such as the YMCA, Boys and Girls Club, social service/community centers and, in the past decade, an increasing number of municipal park districts. Staffing usually consist of recreation professionals, social and youth workers, and volunteers. In…

Across the United States, a movement to create a new kind of public school--"autonomous district schools"--is giving districts the freedoms charter schools receive. Like charter schools, autonomous district schools are freed from innovation-inhibiting state and district policies, allowing talented educators to make academic and…

The focus of this basic qualitative research was to gain insight into the experiences of first-generation Hispanic students (FGHS) and faculty mentors to explore in what ways, if any, a faculty-student mentoring program at a four-year university was meeting the needs of FGHS. Reasons for early student departure served as the foundation for this…

This article describes the development and implementation of a pilot program to prepare teachers seeking New York state certification as school district administrators, by assigning them as administrative interns to a school district. The superintendent of a large urban school district and the director of a college program to prepare school…

In this paper, we present details of a partnership undertaken by four universities with field-based, alternative STEM teacher preparation programs and a large urban school district to provide ongoing professional support for teachers serving as mentors for individuals preparing for careers in high-poverty schools. We also present key findings…

This study analyzes resilience differences between sedentary adolescents and adolescents that were classified as belonging to different sport activity categories in gender and age groups (grades 5-6, 7-8 and 9-10). The data were taken from the 2008 study which had been carried out in five biggest cities in Lithuania. The self-reported data on…

Improving the quality of healthcare while simultaneously reducing its overall costs remains a challenge. One of the recommended approaches for achieving this goal is to build high quality data collection and reporting systems to facilitate evidence-based practice (EBP), which emphasizes the importance of using the solid evidence available to make…

This report presents outcomes for students who participated in the Cycle 8 of Afterschool Centers on Education (ACE) program managed by Boys and Girls Club of the Greater Austin Area in 2015-2016. The report compares student outcomes over two years by level of program participation.

The Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) identified a need for a comprehensive set of best practices in nutrition education for low-income audiences for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) educational projects, including SNAP-Ed. A comprehensive list of best practices would promote consistency and efficacy in program planning,…

The University of Minnesota Extension Center for Youth Development made an organizational decision in 2011 to invest in a system-wide approach to implement youth program quality into the 4-H program using the Youth Program Quality Assessment (YPQA) tool. This article describes the four key components to the Minnesota Youth Program Quality…

College and University faculty members have increasingly adopted experiential learning teaching methods that are designed to engage students in the learning process. Experiential learning is simply defined as "hands-on" learning and may involve any of the following activities: service learning, applied learning in the discipline,…

Explore the practical steps teacher teams must take to establish clear, comprehensive assessment systems that guide instruction and strengthen PLCs. This book has the capacity to reignite passion and energy assessment practices bring as tools to guide teaching and learning. Strengthen instructional agility in professional learning communities with…

This brief explores the costs of developing and implementing Student Learning Objectives (SLOs) in order to help Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) grantees interested in adopting SLOs anticipate and understand the costs of implementing them in a district or school. The brief focuses on the costs involved with the initial design and implementation of an…