Early proponents of charter schools argued that these human-scale organizations would help close the achievement gap. This paper examines survey data from principals of 1,010 charter schools nationwide during the 1999-2000 school year, along with 2,847 teachers in the same schools. Issues considered include how local activists and charter-school…

This book serves as a guide for educators who want to know about and use problem-based learning (PBL) in their schools. Chapter 1 provides anecdotal reports by teachers and students, including examples from universities as well as elementary and secondary education. Chapter 2 gives an overview of PBL for those who want to learn more about the…

Academic rigor is a topic that resides at the very core of the traditional conception of the academy. At the dawn of this new millennium, the popularity of new pedagogical beliefs and instructional strategies, such as constructivism and problem-based learning, and delivery methods, such as online distance education, make it clear that it is time…

This paper reports research in progress. It presents information in the literature on converting traditional courses into Web-based format. The paper is divided into four parts. The first part makes and introduction to Distance Education (DE) and Web-Based Instruction (WBI), which combines features from both face-to-face classroom instruction and…

The purpose of this study is to investigate facilitation in an online learning environment. The types of facilitation are examined using distance course students as subjects. Students' characteristics such as prior experience in distance courses, demographic attributes such as age, gender, and grades are incorporated as variables to explore their…

The main purpose of this Naturalistic inquiry study is to explore four ethically diverse Web-based Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) students' perceptions of and experiences in knowledge construction and group collaboration. Findings suggest that individual and group successes are interconnected and rely on successful negotiation…

Charter schools represent the fastest growing reform movement in public education today. This report focuses on what has been learned so far about the range of charter schools, and how to create effective charter school policies focusing on five states with statutes that have proven effective in spurring the creation of charter schools: Arizona,…

This monograph examines educational alternatives for children and youth with emotional, behavioral, or social problems. It focuses on alternatives to traditional education systems, concentrating on those which have an administrative structure separate from the regular education system. It begins with a brief description of the role alternative…

The myths, politics, and realities of public school choice in Canada are explored. With the crisis of confidence in the public education system that has been documented in recent years, parents are seeking to ensure academic success for their children through choice of schools, under the theory that there is no universal best school model. Public…

The purpose of this paper is to provide a best-evidence synthesis of studies on preservice teachers' conceptions of teaching and learning and to describe their implications for teacher education. The studies that focus on preservice teachers' conceptions were grouped according to five themes. They include: (1) general orientations to teaching and…

While distance education can be traced to correspondence courses that in the 19th and 20th centuries relied on mail services to transmit communications between student and teacher, it is the advent of computers networked via the Internet that has dramatically affected the character of distance education. For the purposes of this paper, distance…

Learning and information management in technology rich environments is a nonlinear process that teachers cannot pretend to control. The University of Central Florida's (UCF) teaching and information management strategies build on metaphors and models borrowed from Dynamical Systems and Complexity Theories to help teachers and others understand…

A review of research in distance education indicates that results are consistent in that there is no significant difference in achievement contributable to the delivery system. This "no significant difference" perspective represents a very narrow vision of the research actually occurring in distance education. This paper attempts to examine the…

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, more than 85% of public universities offer distance learning and online courses, degrees, and career credentials, and an increasing number of career-related training courses and programs are being offered online. In this book, lifelong learners, wired students, and professionals using…

Recent growth in national attention directed toward online courses and virtual schools underscores the importance of e-learning policy and online learning practices. In response to these needs, this edition of "Policy Issues" aims to: summarize the critical e-learning issues related to education policy; provide an overview of what works,…