3D virtual worlds can and have been used as a meeting place for distance education courses. Virtual worlds allow for group learning of the kind enjoyed by students gathered in a virtual classroom, where they know they are in a communal space, they are aware of the social process of learning and are affected by the presence and behaviour of their…

"Potemkin schools" is used as the phrase to capture what a US science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) public speciality high school becomes as a result of its institutional branding. By way of an examination of the efforts of one teacher drawn into school branding through his "inquiry-based reform" of an Advanced Chemistry course,…

This article features Lesher Middle School, a school of choice, as are all of the schools in the Poudre School District in Ft. Collins, Colorado. In 2004, it was a traditional junior high school with a declining enrollment that housed an application-based International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme (IB MYP) that resulted in tracking…

Vallivue School District, located about 20 minutes from Boise, Idaho, can trace its origins to 13 rural schools scattered throughout Canyon County. The schools served students from kindergarten through eighth grade, and each building was independently administered by local school boards. Those boards were consolidated into a single district in…

This article provides a retrospective review and analysis of New Labour's policies in relation to lifelong learning. New Labour's plans to promote social inclusion through lifelong learning resulted in a focus upon participation in terms of increasing the numbers of students involved in formal learning and increasing their participation in…

This article is a tribute to JoBeth Allen, recipient of the Elementary Section's 2012 award for Outstanding Educator in the English Language Arts. Each year, this award recognizes a distinguished educator who has made major contributions to the field of language arts in elementary education. This article was written by second-grade teacher and…

Making changes in the school setting is not easy. However, it is possible if one looks beyond the library, to see how change can benefit the entire school. Just switching wording from the comfortable language of library lingo to a broader school perspective, made change possible in the author's school. In this article, the author shares her…

This article presents an interview with Michael Fullan, an internationally recognized expert in educational change. A prolific writer and speaker, Fullan has worked in schools and educational systems around the world, including his home province of Ontario, Canada. He partners with a variety of projects designed to engineer school improvement and…

Cumberland University (CU), where the author serves as a library technical assistant, is a small, private liberal arts college located in Lebanon, Tennessee, about 30 miles east of Nashville. CU was the first college in Tennessee to have campuswide wireless internet access, and organizations such as the Alumni Association have a strong presence in…

In fewer than 10 years since the year 2000, systems around the world have been affected by global changes and new understandings that challenge what it means to improve schools and build capacity for improvement. This article examines seven issues in the last decade and their implications for "building capacity for improvement". It concludes that…

The conceptualizing of and structuring of a learning commons shifts both the thinking of what a library media center is as well as its learning imperative in the school. Rather than being defined in terms of collections and instructional activities that focus primarily on an information-centric paradigm--the finding, accessing, and evaluating of…

This article explains what the authors know, from plentiful cross-sector research, about how to engineer turnarounds within existing organizations. It then identifies two critical policy issues that states and districts must address to accelerate the prevalence of real, successful turnarounds in education. Effective turnaround leaders follow a…

Asthma has reached epidemic proportions in the United States, affecting millions of people of all ages and races. An average of one out of every 10 school-age children now has asthma, and the percentage of children with asthma is rising more rapidly in preschool-age children than in any other age group. Asthma is a leading cause of school…

This action research study examined the process of creation and implementation of a case statement for an urban community college foundation. An instrumental case study methodology was used in examining this process. The study chronicled a successful participatory development process that allowed a number of stakeholders to effectively work on…

The purpose of this EPP is to develop a plan for changing the mindset of a large number of Haddonfield Memorial High School (HMHS) students from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. HMHS is by most conventional measures a high performing school. Typically 100% of the students graduate with 96% of the students attending two or four year colleges…