To support continuous improvement in the quality, scale and breadth of online education, the Sloan Consortium invites practitioners to share effective practices. This report synthesizes effective practices submitted by more than 150 Sloan-C organizations that are listed as of December 2008 in the Sloan-C Effective Practices online collection at…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present how the Regional Centres of Expertise (RCE) Graz-Styria as well as RCEs as instruments can contribute to regional development. The RCE Graz-Styria is representing a case study of Central European RCEs. Design/methodology/approach: The paper describes the development process of RCE Graz-Styria.…

This year's E-Learn conference has numerous exciting presentations and keynotes. Many speakers will be discussing how education is changing in the forthcoming years. Among them are Dale Stephens who works with the social movement "Uncollege" that empower students to create their own education, Saul Carliner who talks about Massive Online…

Regions around the country are grappling with current and anticipated skills shortages and, in some cases, labor shortages. Economic prosperity depends heavily on the quality of the workforce, and yet far too few regions have recognized their best underutilized asset: the mature workforce. Because mature workers are nearing traditional retirement…

On March 13, 2009, Dr. Joyce VanTassel-Baska, an eminent leader in gifted education, was presented with a Festschrift, a volume of articles submitted by colleagues as well as former and current graduate students to celebrate her life's work and influence on the field. This volume is a free supplement from The College of William and Mary's Center…

This booklet focuses on effective mathematics teaching. Drawing on a wide range of research, it describes the kinds of pedagogical approaches that engage learners and lead to desirable outcomes. The aim of the booklet is to deepen the understanding of practitioners, teacher educators, and policy makers and assist them to optimize opportunities for…

Quality Matters[TM] (QM) is a set of standards to measure the quality of instruction and design in online or hybrid courses. Adopted by a growing number of institutions nationwide, QM is based on best practices and instructional design research. To meet or exceed QM standards requires that resources and learning activities in an online course…

Intense competitive pressure and the need for continual improvements have led to a burgeoning interest in and use of pay-for-performance programs. This paper explores the increased use of pay-for-performance, drawing examples from healthcare, education, and the government. Suggestions are made as to how best to implement pay-for-performance…

This report is a synthesis of research, challenges, and best practices in the education of secondary English Learners (ELs). It incorporates a summary of three days of presentations and discussions by key national experts in the spring of 2005, observations and findings from our own research, and key issues from the research literature. The report…

As the diversity of the students on campus increases, the importance for everyone in authority to understand students' distinct cultures and how they perceive institutions, and equally, to understand their own privilege, and often unconscious cultural assumptions, has never been greater. This book presents a comprehensive set of resources to guide…

The mission of the National Academy for Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (NAIRTL) is to ensure that all higher education students are exposed to cutting edge research in their classrooms, and that students at undergraduate and postgraduate levels are actively engaged in relevant and authentic research in their chosen discipline. To…

This study addresses preservice teachers' perceptions toward online experiences, specifically, their perceptions about utilizing an online science methods curriculum versus a traditional methods curriculum. Thirty-eight senior level preservice teachers at a midwestern U.S. university completed surveys about their experiences during their methods…

The following paper culminates a year of research conducted by researchers at E[superscript 3] Alliance and Texas State University and sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The following reports on promising practices observed and reported at Manor New Tech High School (MNTH), a Texas Science Technology Engineering Mathematics (T-STEM)…

The purpose of this study was to identify instructional strategies and support services of five learning community programs that focus on the retention of African American students at California Community Colleges. Empirical research indicates that colleges and universities have historically structured their curricula, student services programs,…

One of the greatest challenges that community colleges face in their efforts to increase graduation rates is improving the success of students in their developmental, or remedial, education programs. This literature review seeks to examine research on developmental education strategies and reforms and identify the most promising approaches for…