Demetrius Fuller developed the HOMies, eight characters who represent eight habits of mind for learners, while he was an art teacher at a Massachusetts elementary school. When students began talking about the HOMies outside their art class, the initiative spread across the school. Linda Nathan, Demetrius Fuller, and Nate Meyers describe the HOMies…

The five-year initiative New Skills for Youth (NSFY) aimed to transform career readiness education and bridge the skills gap by supporting innovative strategies in 10 states across the United States. NSFY was one of the earliest and most impactful philanthropic investments in career pathways and career readiness in recent history and helped spark…

The Massachusetts edTPA Pilot and Field Test (2010-2013) was launched by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to evaluate the possible adoption of edTPA within that state. Guided by Cochran-Smith et al.'s (2013) Politics of Policy Framework, this mixed-methods study examines this policy initiative by analyzing the…

The Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority (IADA) program, written into the Every Student Succeeds Act, gives up to seven state educational agencies the opportunity to launch innovative assessment pilots in their public schools, with the goal of eventual statewide implementation. As of August 2020, the U.S. Department of Education had…

School accountability systems have been roundly criticized for their narrowness, being largely informed by standardized achievement scores. With the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act, accountability systems may become more multifaceted in coming years. This study examines pilot results of an alternative school quality framework--one…

This capstone chronicles my leadership in piloting, designing, and creating both a district-wide and school-based partnership definition along with partnership effectiveness elements and standards for the Boston Public Schools (BPS). From July 2015 to March 2016, I accomplished these tasks by using two guiding frameworks: the user-centered design…

This chapter describes a small-scale pilot study in which participants in the experimental group learned how to write Japanese kanji characters within an immersive Virtual Reality (VR) graffiti simulator (the Kingspray Graffiti Simulator on the Oculus Rift VR system). In comparing the experimental group to the non-VR control group in the context…

Discussion of alternative education is growing across the country as states and districts look for ways to better serve students whose needs are not met in traditional high school settings. Alternative settings, however, vary greatly in how they operate, whom they aim to enroll, and the methods they use to educate students. The variation of…

Adult Basic Education programs are under pressure to develop and deliver instruction that promotes rapid and sustained literacy development. We describe a novel approach to a literacy intervention that focuses on morphemes, which are the smallest meaningful units contained in words. We argue that if you teach learners that big words are comprised…

In order to inform the Indiana State Board of Education's decision-making on Indiana's On My Way Pre-K Pilot program, researchers at the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy (CEEP) at Indiana University compiled existing data on ten states that have implemented pilot pre-Kindergarten (pre-K) programs and subsequently expanded these programs…

This article describes efforts in Massachusetts and the Multi-State Collaborative to Advance Learning Outcomes Assessment (MSC) to develop a statewide system for learning outcomes assessment that does not rely on standardized testing and that is designed to transcend the traditional tensions and boundaries between campus-based formative and…

The Biggest Mover Program, an educational program to improve daily exercise and healthy eating was developed to address the learning needs of students with intellectual and developmental disabilities and physical challenges. The program was part of a three-part program to improve the knowledge of students, staff, and teachers through the use of…

Food safety training materials, targeted for residential childcare institution (RCCI) staff of facilities of 20 residents or less, were developed, piloted, and evaluated. The goal was to assist in the implementation of a Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP)-based food safety plan as required by Food and Nutrition Service/United States…

Research is clear: Employers want college graduates who can communicate clearly, think analytically, and interact respectfully. Targeted educational experiences have measurably improved these capacities. To better prepare undergraduates, the University of Massachusetts Amherst developed the Community-Engaged Research Program, a pilot program…

Deep-sea research is rarely available to undergraduate students. However, as telepresence technology becomes more available, doors may open for more undergraduates to pursue research that includes remote fieldwork. This descriptive case study is an initial investigation into whether such technology might provide a feasible opportunity for…