Immersion programs for teacher candidates are intended to start the process of teacher development by exposing candidates to realities and tensions of schools while giving them opportunities to create viable responses to the issues they face. Two immersion programs in Massachusetts--180 Days in Springfield and Bridges to the Future--provide new…

The article posits a paradigm for school development (SD) in the context of a developing country, which is somewhat different from the dominant SD and school improvement (SI) paradigm in the West. Within this paradigm the norm of a school-parent engagement over pedagogical issues as in the West is replaced by imperatives based on full community…

The University of West Georgia implemented a successful research-based initiative, Project DEW (Developing eCore Winners) to improve retention in its eCore courses. eCore courses are those offered through a collaborative University System of Georgia program, and includes courses required to complete the first two years of an undergraduate degree.…

China started up pilot projects for the evaluation of teaching work at regular higher education institutions (HEIs) in 1994, and, beginning in 2003, the Ministry of Education (MOE) formally set up a system of cyclical teaching evaluation. Among the 592 undergraduate colleges and universities that were listed in the plan for the first round of…

This article presents a reflective report on a project aiming to strengthen educators and improve early childhood education in Guinea-Bissau--one of the poorest countries on the African continent, where preschool teachers have no training and have to face several ongoing difficulties. Helping these Guinea-Bissau teachers to focus on curriculum…

The topic of diagnostic error is a relatively new one in the academic arena and lacks an organized research agenda. Participants at "Diagnostic Error in Medicine-2008" formally considered this issue and provided initial suggestions. Recommendations were made to standardize taxonomies and definitions, especially in regard to what constitutes a…

The ADVANCE Institutional Transformation projects are remarkably diverse in their theories of action and choice of strategies. However, faculty development plays a role in many, and it was the central change strategy chosen by Leadership Education for Advancement and Promotion (LEAP), the 2002-2008 ADVANCE project at the University of Colorado at…

Outdoor education continues to play an important role in helping to deliver the school curriculum. Recent UK government initiatives have encouraged schools to deliver more of the curriculum outside the classroom. However, teacher confidence in taking pupils outside has been negatively affected by many factors in recent years. The Hampshire…

This article argues that the focus within much normative education policy is with in-school effects which has sidelined the impact of structural and material factors in respect of the urban primary school. Educational reforms intended to improve schools are less likely to make much impact unless these contextualizing matters are directly…

Individual performers, work teams, and organizations may be considered complex adaptive systems, while most current human performance technologies appear to assume simple determinism. This article explores the apparent mismatch and speculates on future efforts to enhance performance if complexity rather than simplicity is assumed. Included are…

Achieving the Dream is a national initiative focused on helping more community college students succeed, particularly students of color and low-income students. Achieving the Dream's student-centered model of institutional improvement focuses on eliminating gaps and raising student achievement by helping institutions build a culture of evidence…

For most of the past decade the policy debate over improving U.S. public education has centered on teacher quality. In this debate, teachers and their unions have often been seen as the problem, not part of the solution. Further, current discourse often assumes that conflicting interests between teacher unions and administration is inevitable.…

Expanding economic opportunity in Texas depends on our state's ability to increase the college graduation rate for the thousands of college freshmen arriving on campuses each year. The pending budget bills would hamper college access for thousands of Texans through severe cuts to successful financial aid programs, including TEXAS Grants (Towards…

In this article, the author talks about the resignation of New York State's commissioner of education David Steiner, and how it will affect the state's Race to the Top. He contends that Steiner was savvy enough to understand the importance of Race to the Top and able enough to turn the state's education energies toward it. The "Washington…

Despite the importance of and advocacy for developing literacy skills for successful and rewarding participation in the community, there remains a common perception that becoming literate is not possible for people with intellectual disabilities. Until recently, limited research has been undertaken to investigate the literacy skills of adults with…