This article discusses the importance of mixed-methods research, in particular the value of qualitatively driven mixed-methods research for quantitatively driven domains like educational accountability. The article demonstrates the merits of qualitative thinking by describing a mixed-methods study that focuses on a middle school's system of…

Many students probably know something about space from playing computer games or watching movies and TV shows. Teachers can expose them to the real thing by launching their experiments into near space on a weather balloon. This article describes how to use high-altitude ballooning (HAB) as a culminating project to a chemistry unit on experimental…

This paper analyzes student evaluations of library orientation and information literacy instruction over a ten-year period, 2002 to 2011. The survey respondents were five hundred students who were taking or had just completed their first course in LEEP, the distance education option of the M.S. program at the University of Illinois. This case…

For many years, schools of social work have engaged in partnerships, especially with public child welfare agencies, to prepare a competent and professional child welfare workforce through the mechanism of Title IV-E training. In 2008 the National Child Welfare Workforce Institute (NCWWI) established an additional resource for preparing students in…

Civic learning for all students seems like a reasonable and important aim for all schools to achieve. If we believe that the future of our American democracy depends on a citizenry that is informed, engaged, and responsible, what better place to create future citizens than in schools? The Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools…

The Midwest Expansion of the Child-Parent Center Education Program (MCPC) is a pre-K to 3rd grade intervention program aimed at improving economically disadvantaged children's school success by enhancing continuity in instruction and increasing parental involvement. Opened in Chicago in the 1960s, this school reform model has undergone significant…

The Consortium on Chicago School Research (CCSR) at the University of Chicago was founded in 1990, two years after the passage of the Chicago School Reform Act that decentralized governance of the city's public schools. Since then, CCSR has distinguished itself as a unique organization, conducting research of high technical quality that is…

In 2013, the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA) in its inaugural "Exemplary Educational Leadership Preparation" (EELP) program competition recognized University of Illinois at Chicago's (UIC) Doctorate in Urban Education Leadership as one of two EELP programs in the United States. This article provides information…

We provide a brief description of a leadership-oriented short-term (nine days) study abroad program offered in May 2012. The program centered in Rome, Italy, combined classroom curricula with field experiences in the city as well as in Bologna and Florence. Initial quantitative and qualitative assessment suggested the program helped student…

This article describes the Ethnography of the University Initiative (EUI), a six-year-old cross-campus program at the University of Illinois that offers students the opportunity to conduct original ethnographic and archival research on their own institutions and supports faculty who guide that research. It helps the researchers and faculty…

The traditional teaching of reading, writing, and arithmetic alone will not fully prepare students to lead with integrity, govern fairly, analyze problems, and work collectively with people different from themselves. Social emotional learning (SEL) has been described as one of the missing links in academic education, but a restrictive approach to…

This article describes a case study that best illustrates the value of student workers in university libraries, focusing particularly on how this kind of creative endeavor benefits everyone involved--the library, the students, the faculty, and at the end of the project: the university community. (Contains 1 table.)

The idea that one of the Catholic Church's most respected religious orders might run a public school sounded odd, maybe even, as Francis Cardinal George, head of the Archdiocese of Chicago, conjectured, illegal. But a decade ago several trends in American education, and in the Catholic Church, made a Catholic-operated public school seem…

Development in the understanding and education of responsible citizenship is an important priority for higher education institutions. Evidence of this importance is expressed in the mission statements of many colleges and universities throughout the United States. As increasing numbers of students take advantage of distance education, it is…

Response to intervention (RTI) protocols at the secondary level require a systems approach that is supported by professional learning teams (PLTs). PLTs create viable courses in which most students experience success and work together to plan further interventions. PLT protocol work begins with the design of uniform summative assessments and is…