Among the opinions of the deans of colleges of agriculture at the major land-grant universities in the 50 states on cooperative extension within today's changing economy are the following: extension needs a system approach; it should operate more on a regional basis; and staff should be more involved in research. (JOW)

Zenger reviews an article on training that he wrote 16 years ago. He looks at the progress made and suggests that every profession has room for improvement. The text of the original article is included. (JOW)

A literature review synthesized recommendations of 58 reports for improving juvenile justice. Extension implications include the following: focus on meaningful youth programming with opportunities for healthy social interaction, multilevel teams and collaborations, attention to different needs of urban and rural youth, and creative approaches to…

Responding to individual differences in classrooms in which there is increasing diversity is one of the challenges of inclusive education in Australia. The linking of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and assistive technologies (ATs) is one way in which this challenge can be addressed. This article describes an initiative, known as…

In recent years, substantial investments have been made in reengineering systems of teacher evaluation. The new generation models of teacher evaluation typically adopt a standards-based view of teaching quality and include a value-added measure of growth in student learning. With more than a decade of experience and research, it is timely to…

In this landmark volume, Greg J. Duncan and Richard J. Murnane lay out a meticulously researched case showing how--in a time of spiraling inequality--strategically targeted interventions and supports can help schools significantly improve the life chances of low-income children. The authors offer a brilliant synthesis of recent research on…

The author never thought he would have to thank Ofsted for a change in its approach that may result in a major improvement in provision; and yet, with the introduction of the revised Common Inspection Framework (CIF), it has made teaching and learning (T&L) the first priority throughout the learning and skills sector. While he wishes to…

In this paper we report on a whole school literacy research project, Embedding Literacies in the KLA's (ELK). The starting point for this endeavour is the theory of knowledge development conceptualised within the sociology of education as the semantic wave (Maton, forthcoming). As discipline knowledge typically resides in the "high…

Rural areas in the alpine regions suffer from dwindling student numbers. Differentiated instruction (DI) could help improve the teaching culture by allowing instructors to better adapt to heterogeneous student groups. At the beginning of a combined research and school improvement project, a survey of 162 teachers and 1180 students was conducted to…

Employee engagement is not just HR's responsibility. While HR is responsible for the process of measuring and driving engagement, improving it is actually everyone's responsibility. And that means reducing the barriers to productivity to drive business performance. Training departments can play a pivotal role. Their job is to enhance curriculum or…

Benchmarking, when done properly, offers a lot of promise for higher education units that want to improve how they do business. It is clear that much is known, but still more needs to be learned before it reaches its full potential as a useful tool. Readers of this issue of "New Directions for Institutional Research" have been treated to useful…

Conditions of learning are critical in determining quality of education. There have been real concerns raised by stakeholders regarding the quality of education for pastoralists in public primary schools in Kajiado Central District in Kenya. Interventions have been put in place to address the issue of quality education. One such intervention is…

Evidence on the effect of extending the school day is decidedly mixed because of the stark differences in how schools use additional time. In this paper, I focus narrowly on the effect of additional time used for individualized tutorials. In 2005, MATCH Charter Public High School integrated two hours of tutorials throughout an extended day. The…

In early November 2013, the authors started talking about visiting the Hurley School, a dual-language school in Boston, Massachusetts. The Hurley School had spent considerable time transitioning to the Common Core State Standards on literacy, but little time addressing the shifts in math. They worried that math classes were no longer rigorous…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of computer courses on young individuals' computer self-efficacy, attitudes and achievement. The study group of this research included 60 unemployed young individuals (18-25 ages) in total; 30 in the experimental group and 30 in the control group. An experimental research model with pretest…