The City of Melbourne's ArtPlay is open to children and young people aged 3-13 years, and provides a wide range of artist-led programs that serve a broad community within and outside the municipality. Its sister facility, Signal, caters for young people 13-22 years. An Australia Council of the Arts funded Creative Community Partnership Initiative,…

Immigration has resulted in an increase in the number of English Language Learners present in schools across the United States. The language barrier and lack of teacher preparation for handling the learning differences of these students have resulted in low reading achievement levels in elementary schools, further promoting the chances that these…

The U.S. Air Force relies on effective leadership to complete its mission. The U.S. Air Force Academy exists to develop leaders of character for the Air Force through a four-year program. Part of this program involves cadets participating in leadership positions. By exploring nine types of cadet leadership positions, this dissertation aims to…

This dissertation investigated the extent to which accreditation-mandated assessment capacity contributes to assessment use in tertiary foreign language (FL) programs. Four research questions were posed to pursue this concern: What is the nature and extent of assessment capacity in college FL programs? Which assessment uses are occurring in…

Most of the scholarship on learner-centeredness is focused on individual classroom pedagogy, but this book takes learner-centeredness beyond the classroom and asks academic leaders to consider the broader implications of making their institutions fully learner-centered. Systemic change is needed, and curriculum is at the heart of what higher…

On February 17, 2009, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The law had a very simple mission: kick-start an economic recovery through strategic investment. Deep within the law were a number of key education initiatives, including Race to the Top (RTT), which was a way to invest in the nation's education system…

Though campus principals must take on many leadership roles, their primary responsibility is to facilitate effective teaching and learning with the overall mission of enhancing student achievement. One way to provide instructional leadership is to evaluate and select effective instructional programs that align with campus goals of improving…

Finland does a number of things to support their children well, but one of the big factors is that they have strong teachers. With the US drifting down the international depth chart of educational performance, what can reformers and teachers do to ensure they learn from the world's best and transform their teaching profession in a way that makes…

Career and technical education (CTE) is increasingly seen as a major potential contributor to the recovery of the U.S. economy. However, the effectiveness and impact of the current Carl D. Perkins Act (otherwise known as Perkins IV) that governs CTE are unclear. Is the federal investment in CTE paying off? To answer this, we need to establish the…

Congress first called for the Advisory Committee on Head Start Research and Evaluation (the "Committee") in its 1998 reauthorization of the Head Start program, with a requirement that the Secretary of Health and Human Services convene a panel of experts to inform the Department about the design of a newly required national evaluation of…

The purpose of this statewide study is to assess the perceived improvements made to programs that are offered at Career and Technical Education Centers from the perspective of vocational administrators and teachers following the Bureau of Career and Technical Education conduction of an Approved Program Evaluation. The Pennsylvania Bureau of Career…

Student response systems (SRS) or clickers have become the norm in K-12 classrooms as an assessment tool as well as a means to increase class participation. Like most technologies, there are varying platforms and manufacturers of SRS mobile devices ranging in cost from approximately $1500 to $3000. In spring 2010, Microsoft launched a free…

Few second-language (L2) reading studies have examined the relationship between reading large amounts of text and fluency, and those studies that have tend to be problematic in terms of their designs and/or analyses. In order to address this lack of empirical L2 reading fluency research, this study investigates the effects of a 1-year pleasure…

Learning to write is an arduous undertaking for every student; for deaf and hard of hearing students, it can be particularly difficult. Too often, they arrive in school with minimal literacy skills, experience subsequent difficulties in writing standard English, and, unfortunately, still graduate with reading levels below those of their hearing…

American businesses and industries have long identified shortages in key career and technical areas--some of these areas require two- or four-year college degrees, whereas others simply require industry certifications. Career and technical education (CTE) has the potential to play a central role in filling these gaps. The current Carl D. Perkins…