National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) student-athletes represent a unique subculture on college campuses, and the athlete must balance the rigors of coursework, athletics, and the non-traditional dynamics associated with being an athlete, which include "dumb jock" stereotypes, isolation, negative criticism, and the fear…

Mentoring research and development often uses a mentor-protégé model, but research often takes place in teams. In this exploratory study, the authors identify the structures and prevalence of multi-mentoring teams by surveying undergraduate researchers about the people who helped them and the support they received. Research teams were common, and…

Background: Over the past two decades, inclusive STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) high schools have emerged as one strategy for increasing and broadening participation in STEM majors and careers, particularly for currently underrepresented students in those fields. However, limited research has examined whether strategies…

"Reclaiming the American Dream" is the cornerstone of American Association of Community Colleges's (AACC) 21st-Century Initiative, launched in 2011 with the goal of outfitting an additional 5 million students with degrees, certificates, or other credentials by 2020. In Phase 1 of the initiative, featured was a nationwide "listening…

Postsecondary institutions are under increasing scrutiny to provide evidence of student learning. Despite efforts to increase the number and frequency of assessments of student learning, many colleges and universities need help to make good use of assessment results for the improvement of teaching and learning. To address this need, in February…

The Common Planning Time Project of the Middle Level Education Research Special Interest Group (MLER SIG) of the American Educational Research Association provided an avenue through which researchers from throughout the United States could investigate numerous aspects of common planning time in schools. Although several studies have investigated…

Leadership matters. Principals are the primary drivers of school improvement and the best long-term investment to ensure effective teaching and learning at scale. Principals are central to State efforts to implement new college and career-ready standards, execute teacher evaluation and support systems and turn around low-performing schools. These…

This article reports the findings of an evaluation of the faculty development component of the Faculty for the Engaged Campus initiative. For this component, the Community-Engaged Scholarship Faculty Development Charrette was attended by 20 university teams from across the United States, and six teams subsequently received 2 years of funding and…

The Association Supporting Computer Users in Education (ASCUE) is a group of people interested in small college computing issues. It is a blend of people from all over the country who use computers in their teaching, academic support, and administrative support functions. ASCUE has a strong tradition of bringing its members together to pool their…

This newsletter of best practices in implementing the High Schools That Work (HSTW), Making Middle Grades Work (MMGW) and Technology Centers That Work (TCTW) school improvement models is based on presentations at the 27th Annual HSTW Staff Development Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the summer of 2013. The newsletter is divided up into…