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…

The purpose of this study was to investigate how STEM-focused professional development training influence early childhood teachers' knowledge, beliefs, and pedagogies. Four pre-K teachers participated in this study. The data collected was qualitative in nature. Interview data were transcribed, coded and emerging themes were identified. The…

We present main effects of treatment and moderating effects of student background on science and engineering outcomes for grades 3-5 children participating in an engineering intervention. Data is from a large-scale randomized-controlled trial of two matched pairs (intervention and comparison) of engineering units. The intervention curriculum…

Engelhard is a very isolated rural community in Hyde County, North Carolina, economically dependent on seafood, small scale agriculture, and logging. In the mid-1980s the agricultural crisis, the decline in seafood landings, and changes in timber industry technology contributed to rising unemployment. Several decades of declining population and…

HRD university curricula from seven online Master's degree programs are compared with their on-campus counterparts. With the exception of one university that does not provide a similar Master's degree program on-campus, curricula are identical in three universities, while curricula in three other universities differ in only one or two courses. A…

The Wilderness Education Association (WEA) helps people enjoy and protect the nation's most precious resource: the wilderness areas. The WEA has been training and certifying outdoor leaders around the world for nearly 30 years, teaching students safely and effectively to lead groups in the outdoors without harming the environment. This document…

The Down East Partnership for Children (DEPC) was established in 1993 to bring together health, education, and social service agencies to address the needs of children and families in two eastern North Carolina counties. Collaboration theory provided a useful lens through which to examine the development of the partnership, recognize preconditions…

Teachers rely on mental planning throughout the design, implementation, and evaluation phases of instruction. This paper focuses on the elementary school teacher's use of instructional design (ID) skills in the planning and delivery of instruction, emphasizing the relative and "real" use of ID practices in both mental and written…

This paper describes how one North Carolina state university redefined its educational leadership program after facing state demands to alter leadership preparation. Concurrent with other national initiatives to reform preparation of school leaders, this initiative was designed to rethink the purpose and function of leadership preparation. After…

North Carolina's Schools Attuned program offers teachers an instructional approach that helps increase students' classroom success by assessing strengths and weaknesses that influence learning. Approximately 400 teachers participated in the program's first year, 1998-1999, and an additional 400 began training in 1999-2000. Teams of teachers from a…

There is increasing evidence that American schools are doing a poor job of preparing students for the work force. Several studies have concluded that North Carolina has the worst school-to-work educational training system in the industrialized world. America's educators still have not learned how to deal with the problems that poverty creates for…

An analysis of rural population growth and its economic consequences in California, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Vermont helps explain the changing conditions in rural America and indicates the direction policy should take. Despite their distance from financial centers and their low density, rural areas are generally characterized by a more…

From 1989 until 1998 the U.S. Department of Education administered the National Workplace Literacy Demonstration Program. During that period, over $130 million supported some 300 projects where adult education programs partnered with thousands of businesses, agencies, and organizations to provide work-based skills to employees. While only seven…

A longitudinal study of achievement data from public schools in Durham County, North Carolina, was undertaken to examine individual growth curves as well as to chart the progress of educational institutions and the effects of aggregation on the study of growth. A two-level hierarchical linear model was used in the study to specify individual…

The purpose of this research study was to identify the potential barriers and benefits of instructional technology infusion in North Carolina and Virginia secondary agricultural education curricula. Focus is placed on determining the future role that instructional technology will play in secondary agricultural curricula and determining the…