The Plus 50 Initiative is a three-year initiative of the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), launched in June 2008 and funded by The Atlantic Philanthropies. It was created to support a pilot group of two-year institutions to develop or expand campus programs that engage plus 50 learners. The overarching goal of the Plus 50…

Place- and community-based education--an approach to teaching and learning that starts with the local--addresses two critical gaps in the experience of many children now growing up in the United States: contact with the natural world and contact with community. It offers a way to extend young people's attention beyond the classroom to the world as…

The perspectives of graduates offer a valuable source of understanding for educators and policy-makers on how to ensure high quality educational pathways that prepare all students for work and college. Based on in-depth interviews with graduates from three Boston Public Schools with well-established performance-based assessment systems, the study…

The aim of this paper is to investigate the pedagogical suitability of using cell phones to enhance learning through social interaction in distance education. Social interaction was used as a conceptual framework to explore the potential for using "MXit"--a cell-phone instant messaging system--to support and enhance learning for distance…

The world faces a number of complex challenges that are sometimes referred to as "wicked problems." Universities have been relatively poor at preparing graduates for such challenges, yet it will be the future professionals who need to tackle the problems. This essay looks at two related projects that have attempted to advance the skills…

Culturally relevant pedagogy is not well understood as an instructional strategy in the mathematics classroom. This study reveals the challenges two teachers faced when they implemented a pilot project with ninth and tenth grade ESOL students. The task they envisioned as culturally relevant did not capture their ESOL student's interests; rather,…

This article describes the initiation of a statewide public-private partnership to expand and enhance services for infants, toddlers, and their families. It presents information regarding the initiation and implementation of the project; the program requirements, including those for professional development; and the design of a three-phase program…

This article reports on the initial findings of research carried out with a cohort of science teachers engaged in a professional development course at a northwest England university. The aim was to investigate how professional development was perceived by participants and explore the experiences of those who undertook the course. Results suggest…

This article reports the findings of a pilot research project that investigated the perceived educational value of sharing narrative practice amongst graduate students from the School of Education and the School of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Tasmania. During a semester the graduate students reflected upon and wrote about a…

The concept of early intervening services was introduced into public school systems with the implementation of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) of 2004. This article describes a program developed for students with speech sound disorders that incorporated concepts of early intervening services, response to…

THE 1ST YEAR OF A 5- TO 6-YEAR PROJECT TO REPLICATE A BOSTON STUDY OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY IN PUERTO RICO WAS REPORTED. THIS FINAL REPORT COVERS ONLY THE PILOT PHASE OF THE PROJECT. THE PROBLEM ON WHICH THE RESEARCH IS FOCUSED IS TO DETERMINE WHICH OF THE FINDINGS OF "UNRAVELING JUVENILE DELINQUENCY," AS THE STARTING POINT FOR THE PUERTO…

Describes how a boys' grammar school set up and successfully ran an A-level psychology course. (BR)

This paper describes a relatively new approach to program evaluation, the "learning history" approach. The paper also presents preliminary results of a pilot test of the method and provides a preliminary account of how this new approach will be compared to the classic goals-based approach to evaluation. The learning history method was…

Discusses the need for and design of a National Service Pilot Project. (MC)