This paper describes how a few simple strategies can provide students with a variety of great writing ideas. Some of the ideas presented are: writing workshops, trading book lists, creating journals, writing poetry, and peer topic conferences.

Mandel interviewed both new teachers and veteran educators who had mentored first-year teachers in Los Angeles schools to ascertain what kind of information new teachers want during their initial year in the classroom. He discovered that few first-year teachers felt they needed guidance related to state standards and standardized tests. New…

What should children learn during the preschool years? In "Eager to Learn: Education Our Preschoolers," the National Research Council responds by saying children will learn language, mathematics, and science. And these "privileged domains" do seem to dominate its curriculum. Nevertheless, the National Research Council does not mean to imply that…

There is minimal guidance for efforts to create effective public messages that increase awareness that suicide is preventable. To address this need, several agencies in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Annenberg Foundation convened a workshop consisting of suicide prevention advocates and persons with expertise in public…

This article marks the 11th entry in a continuing series of biennial articles that have reported on surveys of the editors of more than 50 prominent education journals. The current survey differs from the previous 10 in that it had a 68% rate of return, compared to an average of over 90% for the others. With the previous surveys, the author…

The American Society of Parasitologists established a five-year plan to educate various groups about parasites and parasitology, which were targeted at K-12 students and teachers, college students and teachers and biologists in other disciplines. This program also developed the idea to host a symposium and workshop for these targeted groups.

In 2000, the Community College Leadership Development Institute (CCLDI) set out to develop a leadership program based on the values and skills most needed by community college leaders. It held two design workshops to identify those underlying values and skills. The design workshop participants were trustees, CEOs, senior administrators, faculty…

Final year research projects are a feature of most biosciences undergraduate courses. However, in a climate of increasing student numbers there is growing interest in providing alternatives to such resource-intensive projects. This interest raises some key questions. In particular, what do students learn from traditional final year projects and…

This article presents some of the latest news about the United States Department of Education. Secretary Margaret Spellings assigned an expanded role for correctional education to The Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE) effective October 1, 2006. The correctional education direct grant programs currently in the Department's Office of…

This article is designed to apply the Principles of Empirically Supported Interventions to the research related to career counseling and interventions. Although there is empirical support for career interventions in general, there is significant variation in effectiveness among different treatment approaches. The most effective interventions are…

Details a pilot customer service training scheme at Paramount Hotels, which leads to a National Vocational Qualification level 3 in customer services. Describes how the training was designed and delivered, and furnishes the views of Paramount Hotels and some of the participants.

Teachers were recruited from the mainland of the United States to work in rural areas in the State of Hawaii to meet the high demand for personnel. But often there is a mismatch between the culture of the island residents and that of the new teachers. To alleviate this mismatch, a workshop was developed to promote multicultural proficiency of…

The study investigated the effects of two reflection support programs on elementary school mathematics teachers' pedagogical problem solving view. Sixty-two teachers participated in a professional development program. Thirty teachers were assigned to the self-questioning (S_Q) training and thirty two teachers were assigned to the reflection…

This paper recounts the author's experience with giving a Needs Assessment for improvement by university teachers. Subjects were from the University of Lethbridge and the 2008 Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE) conference session. Teachers at the University (n = 77) indicated they could spend 5-15 hours in teaching…

One of the greatest challenges for those who study schools and their success in educating students is defining the characteristics of those organizations that are successful, and recognizing the variables that exist to support the actions of the members of the organization. In this era of assessment and accountability, school districts struggle to…