This article provides the background and describes the processes involved in establishing a national approach to benchmarking the way universities engage with their local and regional communities in Australia. Local and regional community engagement is a rapidly expanding activity in Australian public universities and is increasingly being seen as…

The State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) is the principal association representing the technology leadership in all fifty states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. This is SETDA's ninth annual report on select educational technology activities. This year's report includes…

The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) documents dimensions of quality in undergraduate education and provides information and assistance to colleges, universities, and other organizations to improve student learning. Its primary activity is annually surveying college students to assess the extent to which they engage in educational…

Math experts developed Formative Assessment Lessons that teachers can incorporate throughout the year's curriculum. Both tools target the "instructional core." A study by Research for Action (RFA) examining the first year of piloting the Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) and Math Design Collaborative (MDC) tools (2010-11) found…

Here we describe a method for teaching the NOS called "Science as Storytelling," which was designed to directly confront narve realist preconceptions about the NOS and replace them with more sophisticated ideas, while retaining a moderate realist perspective. It was also designed to foster a more sophisticated understanding of the…

Alternative programs in special education are often developed in response to chronic personnel shortages. At issue, however, is the quality of alternative programs and their graduates. This paper describes the design, implementation and evaluation of a large special education alternative certification program that adheres to both professional…

The American Association of Community Colleges' (AACC) Plus 50 Initiative is a three-year initiative 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 initiative focuses on three types of…

Project Early Kindergarten-Early Reading First (PEK-ERF) is a partnership between Saint Paul Public Schools, Wilder Child Development Center, and Bethel University King Family Foundation Child Development Center. The program provides pre-kindergarten education to 3- and 4-year-olds in Saint Paul, and targets those who are low-income, English…

The Exploratorium is home to XTech, a science education program which began in 2006 and was primarily funded by a three-year National Science Foundation grant (Award # 05-25217) through its ITEST (Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers) initiative. XTech provided project-based afterschool activities in science, engineering,…

Paying teachers varying amounts on the basis of how well their students perform is an idea that has been winning increasing support, both in the United States and abroad, and many school systems have adopted some version of it. Proponents claim that linking teacher pay to student performance is a powerful way to encourage talented and highly…

In July of 2007, the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy (CEEP) at Indiana University was contracted by the state legislature to conduct an evaluation of the Indiana charter schools. The current study reports the results of an evaluation that has been designed to ensure that all objectives of the provisions of HEA 1001-2007 are fulfilled.…

In 2003, the Allegheny Intermediate Unit received a grant under the National Science Foundation's Math and Science Partnership program to establish the Math Science Partnership of Southwest Pennsylvania (MSP). The MSP brings together regional K-12 school districts, institutions of higher education, and intermediate units with the goals of…

The Teacher Advancement Program (TAP) was developed in the late 1990s by the Milken Family Foundation as a schoolwide policy to improve schools by raising teacher quality. Under the TAP model, teachers can earn extra pay and responsibilities through promotion to Mentor or Master Teacher and can earn annual performance bonuses based on a…

Classrooms across the country are discovering the power of service-learning--the ideal way to help students develop social and academic skills while giving back to their community. Now for the first time, there's a practical how-to guide on using serving-learning to promote inclusion and differentiate instruction for students with and without…

This report is one of several efforts designed to monitor outcomes in Washington's higher education system, and fulfills the biennial requirement that the Higher Education Coordinating Board (HECB) inform the higher education and fiscal committees of the legislature of progress toward goals. The portrait that emerges from this review of…