Most professional development opportunities for early childhood teachers are offered as face-to-face sessions (in various formats, including workshops, coaching, and college courses), tailored for teachers in traditional school- or center-based child care, offered during a traditional academic year, or during summer, or on professional development…

With growing interest among higher education faculty and administration in adopting open educational resources (OER), several nationwide and statewide OER initiatives are attempting to increase the awareness and encourage the implementation of OER. In the exploration of OER resources for career and technical education (CTE) in Illinois community…

This study examines the construction and meaning of International Baccalaureate (IB) schools as manifested by schools in four locations: Chicago, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, and the United Arab Emirates. Through analysis of schools' websites, we identify three major approaches towards constructing the schools' image: globally acknowledged quality,…

A review of State Department of Education and school district websites was conducted to determine how policy related to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) was communicated to teachers of students with severe disabilities. Four states were selected: California, New York, Illinois, and Pennsylvania. State Department of Education websites and…

This paper describes and compares the profiles of the top accounting programs in the United States as identified by "U.S. News and World Report" in 2004 with the profiles of the top accounting programs in the United States as identified by the "Accounting Degree Review" in 2014. The "Accounting Degree Review"'s list…

This study investigated the effects of reflective writing on student writing self-efficacy and on the quality of the final research-based essay. Subjects were 110 students enrolled in a freshman 101 Honors English class in a public high school in northern Illinois. Students in the control and experimental groups wrote two essays requiring the…

Children's earliest years are times of significant development and learning, yet the professionals who provide care for young children often do not receive the economic or professional support they need and deserve. Given the unique situations of child care professionals, especially those running their own family child care businesses, we must…

Research indicates that school nursing services are cost-effective, but the National Association of School Nurses estimates that 25% of schools do not have a school nurse (SN). The purpose of this study was to identify the characteristics of Illinois school districts that employed SNs. This was a secondary data analysis of Illinois School Report…

This quantitative study investigated e-mail responsiveness by community colleges in the nine mega-states to an inquiry from a prospective student. Noel-Levitz (2006b) reported that prospective students want to receive an e-mail with information about an institution prior to applying for admission. Specifically, high school juniors and seniors want…

This paper examines primarily the courses in the accounting major and a portion of the business core of the best thirty accounting programs in the United States as identified by the Accounting Degree Review. A thorough examination of each school's web site has been conducted to gather current (2014) information concerning the requirements for a…

Use of Internet websites as a communication tool by community college is nearly universal. Exactly what information, functions, and links are offered varies widely among institutions. Research has reported that high school juniors and seniors, prefer to find information on the Internet during their college search process, and Noel Levitz (2006,…

This article highlights an inquiry project in an eighth-grade ELA class in a rural middle school. Using the novel "Monster" by Walter Dean Myers, we encouraged students to form questions relating the text to the larger world. To begin the unit, students participated in three anchor activities over a three-week period. Students blogged…

This guiding document outlines five goals and supporting objectives that help advance National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) mission through education: (1) Science-Informed Society; (2) Conservation and Stewardship; (3) Safety and Preparedness; (4) Future Workforce; (5) Organizational Excellence. In this report, NOAA introduces…

Student transfer is affected by several factors, some of them student-specific and some of them defined by institutional, system, and state policies and practices. This chapter provides a brief description of articulation agreements and policies intended to facilitate transfer; examples of institutional partnership, system-level, and statewide…

Many of today's youth feel disconnected from their local communities. At the same time, most of them are regularly connected to the Internet and other digital media to gather information and communicate with their peers. This study conducts a qualitative textual analysis of 14 scholastic and nonscholastic youth media websites to derive five…