Assessing campus needs for educational technologies and support is no small undertaking, so ensuring that one collects information that truly will help decision making requires careful planning. Data collection can be time-consuming and expensive. A well-organized educational technology needs assessment should add value to campus IT resources, not…

This article reports how researchers at Virginia Tech, working in a variety of disciplines, are studying the long-term effects of the campus killings 10 months ago. After the killings, administrators at Virginia Tech realized that their normal institutional-review process for research proposals was not sufficient to deal with the likely onslaught…

The pressures on community colleges have mounted for years; they must balance: competition from the growing for-profit-education industry, demands from lawmakers for more accountability, and the shifting needs of an increasingly complex student body. Most recently, intense financial pressure has been added to the mix as states once again face…

This study aims to provide some clarity about how learning to teach is understood by university teacher educators, mentors and students. Initial teacher education (ITE) in England is subject to central government legislation but without prescription for local implementation. Semi-structured interview data was collected from key partners in a local…

This study explored the role realization journey of 11 English Teaching Assistants (ETAs) in Hong Kong. Their journey is framed through the lenses of Shulman's (1987) teaching elements of content pedagogical knowledge, knowledge of learners and their characteristics, and knowledge of educational contexts. Data from four different inquiry methods…

Various Web 2.0 technologies can be used to support pedagogy. Examples include wikis, blogs, and social media including forum discussions. Online class forum discussions involving electronic text can result in robust strings of data containing meta-knowledge, inherent meaning, themes and patterns. Based on instructional design, learning outcomes…

This study examined community leadership education programs employed in rural communities and organizations of several states to empower both local leaders and residents. In particular, the study investigated the relationships between community leadership education program design and structure (contact hours and content) and six outcome indices of…

For educational achievement tests that employ multiple-choice (MC) items and aim to reliably classify students into performance categories, it is critical to design MC items that are capable of discriminating student performance according to the stated achievement levels. This is accomplished, in part, by clearly understanding how item design…

This population-based study investigated the unique and cumulative relations between risks that are monitored by public surveillance systems and academic and behavioral outcomes for an entire cohort of third graders in a large, urban public school system. Using integrated, administrative records from child welfare, public health, housing, and…

Technology is increasingly used to aid the teaching of statistics. Personal Response Systems (PRS) involve equipping students with a handset allowing them to send responses to questions put to them by a lecturer. PRS allows lectures to be more interactive and can help reinforce material. It can also allow the lecturer to monitor students'…

The purpose of this study is to explore, using a musical metaphor, the consonance, counterpoint, dissonance, and resonance of a large-scale multicultural teacher education program. In particular, it examines the different instructional approaches of seven graduate students and two faculty who currently teach an undergraduate multicultural…

Using participant observation, we describe/interpret the results of teaching a constructivist unit that empowered students in narrative writing and illustration. Participant observation methods included daily note taking, pre-post questioning, and photographing artworks. We analyzed students' stories and illustrations with borrowed and emerging…

In the modern world, higher education is transitioning from enrollment mode to recruitment mode. This shift paved the way for institutional research and policy making from historical data perspective. More and more universities in the U.S. are implementing and using enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, which collect vast amounts of data.…

It is well documented that general classroom teachers have not been adequately prepared to address the unique needs of the English language learners (ELLs) that many are now teaching for the first time (Cartiera, 2006; Giambo & Szecsi, 2005; Short & Echevarria, 2004). With ELLs' presence growing in U. S. public schools (e.g., August, 2006;…

The purpose of this study was to examine the issues of elementary teacher preparation for teaching literacy and teacher preparation for teaching literacy to diverse populations. This study contrasted primary teachers' literacy preparation and practice in high, middle, and low achieving and high, average, and low need schools in New York State.…