The Childcare Act 2006 is the first piece of legislation of its kind in the UK, and is a significant development for the early years sector and childcare services more broadly. Ensuring every child has the best start in life is one of the guiding principles of the Government's 10-year strategy for childcare, but the strategies for implementation…

"Sustainable development" is one framework. "Bioregionalism" is another. Both phrases have evolved in an attempt to create a powerful, encompassing vision of planetary wellness and regeneration. Some American practitioner-philosophers of sustainable agriculture argued that people must become thoughtful, responsible dwellers of…

There is a call for change in College Algebra. The traditional focus on skill development is failing, resulting in withdrawal and failure rates that are excessive. In addition, too many students who are successful do not continue on to take a successive mathematics course. The Institute for Mathematics Learning at West Virginia University has been…

Distance education enabled by e-learning is at the forefront of university participation in an increasingly connected world. Physical, temporal, cultural and educational borders are becoming both less rigid and less predictable than ever before. The authors suggest, in this article, that university distance e-learning could and should allow…

The reader is the new superintendent recently appointed by the Board. In their new role, they will certainly face many difficult and complex challenges. To accomplish this task, the first step in the process is to establish with the cabinet and Board of Trustees a definition of a "shared vision" and "strategic plan" and what process would be used…

Who should be accountable for what beginning teachers need to know? This article first explains and illustrates three sets of knowledge and skills beginning teachers should have acquired in their preparation programs: academic knowledge needed for teaching the field of their license, generic professional knowledge and skills needed for teaching…

This article reflects upon Rex Stockton's contributions to the area of group process and outcome research. Through a series of research studies and literature reviews, Stockton has contributed to the current understanding of the precise mechanisms of change through which groups are effective. His work in the areas of structure, cohesion, premature…

Assessment of learning is critical to the learners, teachers, and designers of learning environments. Current assessment techniques in web-based distance learning apply age-old techniques to a new medium and are not adequate for web-based distance learning environments (WBDLE). The goals of this article are to extend existing critiques of…

Four out of five institutions of higher education are in the process of implementing (or significantly upgrading) their student information systems. This is more than a technical undertaking. How can a campus be attentive, right from the start, to the needs of its members, and maintain a vision that translates into a shared commitment to…

The purpose of this article is to describe how two partnering organizations, the College of Education at the University of Missouri-Columbia and the Independence School District, experienced a successful partnership leading to simultaneous renewal. A demonstration of this successful partnership is described not by student achievement outcomes or…

Whether staff members are working in urban, rural, or suburban branches, for many years national organizations have been committed to preparing them to work effectively with young people. Over the past couple of decades, national organizations have sought and received strong funding to develop targeted, comprehensive professional development…

This article distills what teachers at six diverse, urban schools came to know as a consequence of engaging in school portfolio development from a teacher knowledge perspective. Grounded in a narrative method and form, the work highlights the asking of hard questions, the concept of powerful learning, the idea of high quality professional…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how the way change implemented effects organizational learning. More specifically, we study the relationships between the use of social accounts, participation and organizational learning in the context of strategic change. The use of social accounts and participation are often promoted during…

This paper proposes a theoretical, yet practical, framework for managing the formation process of students unrealistic expectations in a college course. Using relational contracting theory, alternative teacher interventions, aimed at effective management of students expectations about the course, are described. Also, the formation of the student…

A demographic time bomb is ticking in many school jurisdictions. Up to 70 per cent of present leaders in the private and public sectors will retire within the next five to ten years as the "baby boomers" move on. While succession planning has become a major initiative in the private sector, leadership succession in education tends to hew…