Innovations, Educational Testing Service (ETS's) corporate magazine, provides information on educational assessment for educators, school leaders, researchers and policymakers around the world. Each issue focuses on a particular theme in assessment. This issue explores the question, "What makes a great teacher?" Articles in this issue…

The School Health Policies and Programs Study (SHPPS) is a national survey periodically conducted to assess school health policies and programs at the state, district, school, and classroom levels. This brief provides an overview of changes from 2000 to 2006 in the following areas: (1) Nutrition; (2) Physical Education and Activity; (3)…

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conducts the School Health Policies and Programs Study (SHPPS) periodically to monitor the extent to which school health policies and practices are addressing the leading causes of death, illness, and social problems among young people and adults. SHPPS 2006 assessed the characteristics of…

The 2007 Annual Meeting of the Association for Continuing Higher Education was themed "Refining Our Mission: Continuing Education's Role in Engagement, Outreach and Public Service." Opportunities were available to participate in sessions relating to outreach, partnerships and public service and perspectives on this theme were presented…

This report of the National Science Foundation-funded SCALE Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) Case Studies line of work provides preliminary findings about SCALE activities at the California State University, Northridge (CSUN). This interview-based study (N = 19) includes a descriptive analysis of SCALE activities and an exploratory analysis…

Partnerships, especially the Professional Development School (PDS) model, between institutions of higher education (IHE) and public schools (PS), have become, if not commonplace, a successful model for teacher education. PDS teacher education projects in which preservice teachers and higher education faculty participate in school-based instruction…

This manual provides information and materials for a professional development program aimed at assisting middle and high school faculties with decision making regarding curriculum integration. The program is an outgrowth of a 2-year research and development project on interdisciplinary teamed instruction conducted in four rural secondary schools…

In an effort to provide prospective teachers with chances to reflect on their professional competence, and to demonstrate their teaching effectiveness and growth, the teacher education program at California State University, Los Angeles, decided to require students to develop portfolios. All students were introduced to the portfolio format during…

This manual presents the major lessons learned about how national authorities, individual institutions, and individual educators can work to increase the impact of the Associated Schools Project (ASP) schools and spread it to other parts of the educational system. ASP is a project of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural…

Action research is an approach to professional development and improved student learning in which teachers systematically reflect on their work, seek feedback from colleagues, and make changes in their practice. Several benefits of action research have been cited: (1) teachers investigate their own practice in a new way, looking at what children…

A general analysis of professional development school (PDS) efforts indicates that, overall, the partnership efforts that were studied devote significantly less attention to ideas about the nature of schools, learning, teaching, the knowledge base for teaching, and teacher learning and professional development than they devote to establishing…

The impact of school-agency partnerships on the professional development of the agency personnel working with teachers on partnership teams was examined in a qualitative study of 18 of 157 natural resources, business, and health care agency professionals identified as having participated in elementary school-based partnerships for 1-6 years in a…

This report summarizes the Engineering Curriculum Transformation Project (ECTP) instituted at the University of Maryland during the 1995-1996 academic year. This initiative focused on facilitating the development of engineering course curricula based on diverse learning styles, more inclusive examples, and the incorporation of diversity and…

This paper describes how a restructured and redesigned teacher training program at West Virginia University utilizes a strand approach to integrate special education learning outcomes into the 15 core courses required of all student teachers. Key elements of the new teacher training program include: a clear set of research-based program goals;…

This book presents a series of conference papers dealing with educational technology. The papers are: "The Role of Educational Technology in Upgrading Teacher Education in Pakistan" (M. Hashim Abbasi and Alex C. Millar); "Report on the Teaching and Learning on the Internet Project--RMIT TAFE" (Laurie Armstrong); "A…