The US Botanical Capacity Assessment Project (BCAP) was initiated as a first step to gauge the nation's collective ability to meet the environmental challenges of the 21st century. The project, in which the authors of this article are involved, specifically aimed to identify multisector contributions to and gaps in botanical capacity in order to…

The authors conducted a test to determine whether they could incorporate a discovery box into a preschool setting was successful. It stimulated the students' natural inquiry processes while promoting understanding of healthy foods and allowing for practice of fine-motor skills. It was easily incorporated into the curriculum and classroom space.…

Curriculum implementation as both an educational practice and a policy conundrum has been the focus of academic research since the 1970s. A new perspective is taken in this article by borrowing from the literature on policy implementation in multilevel systems of government. The concepts of "hard" and "soft" policy are used to…

Emerging from the 1960s and a focus on transformative learning, Walden University is a pioneering program for adult learners. The authors outline how Walden's doctoral program engaged mid-career professionals in student-designed inquiry and applied scholarship. They first discuss the founding of Walden University. Then they describe how the…

In response to the research priorities of members of TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages), this study investigated language learners' realworld tasks in mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) to inform the future development of pedagogic tasks for academic English as a second language (ESL) courses. The data included…

This article reports on two studies using "Language Muse[superscript SM]" (LM), a web-based, teacher professional development (TPD) application designed to enhance teachers' linguistic awareness and to support teachers in the development of language-based instructional scaffolding for English language learners (ELL). In Study 1,…

The National Policy on Education (2013) describes education as an instrument for national development and social change. Teachers are very important in implementing quality education that can bring about national development. However, no education can rise beyond the quality of its teachers. Pre-service teachers are produced by colleges and…

Are there teachable "transferable skills" (TS) that might mitigate the limitations of a rural location--or indeed, the limitations any program might encounter in regard to diversity expectations? Following a study conducted in 2010 of how rural schools, colleges, and departments of education (SCDEs) attempted to meet the National Council…

The "College English Curriculum Requirements," announced by the Chinese Ministry of Education in 2007, recommended the inclusion of formative assessment into the existing summative assessment framework of College English. This policy had the potential to fundamentally change the nature of assessment and its role in the teaching and…

In the summer of 2012, the University of Arizona Libraries implemented an online training program to effectively train Access Services staff and student employees at a large academic research library. This article discusses the program, which was built using a course management system (D2L) and various e-Learning software applications (Articulate…

This article reports the findings of a PhD study, which offers comparative perspectives on teacher education in a period of reforms, inquiring into stakeholders' perceptions in English, French, Italian and Spanish contexts as case studies. The interaction of needs and constraints in European initial teacher education within higher education…

This study seeks to determine how and to what extent the core principles of the early childhood education programme at Levinsky College of Education in Israel were applied by a third-year student teacher in a traditional fieldwork placement. At the beginning of the school year, the student planned to engage two small groups of children in her…

This case study tracks the application of project-based learning (PBL) during four separate college terms at Portland Community College in Portland, Oregon. Each term follows a different learning community of first-term college students enrolled in a program of developmental education (DE), reading, writing, math, and college survival and success…

School districts within the USA face ever-decreasing autonomy in rendering decisions regarding instruction, curriculum and the leading and managing of schools at the local level due to the ever-increasing accountability measures implemented by district, state and federal governments. This study investigates a joint university-school district…

University provision for academic development is well established in the USA, UK and many other countries. However, arrangements for its provision and staffing vary. In Australia, there has been a trend towards professional rather than academic staff appointments. Is this appropriate? In this paper, the domains of academic development work are…