For many years people have discussed the research-to-practice gap in education. Recently, increased attention has been devoted to creating opportunities for practitioners and researchers to engage in highly collaborative partnerships from design to implementation to dissemination (e.g., Institute for Education Sciences, 2016). In this article, we…

A rubric is a scoring guide that consists of specific pre-established performance criteria, used for evaluating students' work. iRubric is a comprehensive digital rubric development, assessment, and sharing tool that shows the major skills and sub-skills to be mastered, the different mastery levels, and marks allocated to each level. This article…

This paper traces the development of the Ed.D., explores the purposes the degree serves, and assesses its value. The creation of the degree stemmed largely from the reluctance of faculty in Arts and Sciences to offer the Ph.D. in professional schools. The one thing most Ed.D. programs have in common is that it is supposed to be an applied or…

Writing centers and their faculty are often considered to be "Others" because they have both power and no power--they have the ability to make a difference in students' writing abilities, but they are often excluded because they are seen as a "fixit," a clinic, a lab, an ancillary. Writing center faculty need to take more power so that they can…

This paper presents the results of a factor analysis that identified five emerging constructs of power from surveys administered in two southeastern states of residence: Florida and Alabama. The five constructs were named the "Five Dimensions of Power" and are: autonomy, resources, responsibility, political efficacy and expertise, and…

This review of the literature defines the concept of student empowerment, discusses the implications of student empowerment in educational settings, and outlines strategies for facilitating increased empowerment. A definition of "empowerment" as "bringing into a state of belief one's ability to act effectively," is offered and the critical…

This paper describes a university German teacher's experience using the file transfer capabilities of the Blackboard Internet tool. The introduction highlights some of the features and advantages of Blackboard. The first section discusses teacher empowerment, noting that the Internet empowers the teacher by providing the wealth of the worlds…

Preparing educators for the challenges of an empowered school community demands collaboration among teacher educators, practitioners, and the community. This paper proposes a theoretical model of empowerment which supports university-school-community ventures. The model, which embraces intra-university collaboration and university-school-community…

High quality education for all students is promoted nationwide. University teacher educators must deal with reality as they provide instruction for prospective teachers. If schools and teachers are to improve, then college faculty must also improve. This must be a unified effort in which higher education institutions work with existing and new…

Although for over 22 years the National Writing Project has been providing methodology for composition instructors, unfortunately pre-service teachers are seldom participants in the Writing Project experience. The need is great for writing pedagogy that truly prepares future teachers to evaluate and respond to writing. Writing partnerships can…

This study examined participants' beliefs and practices regarding power with personal demographic variables (gender, age, degree level, and years of experience) and school-related variables (level of school employed, type of school community, and overall citizenship) on power beliefs and practices. A principal component analysis of 668 survey…

This study examined whether teachers perceived their school principals as using empowering-type activities. The study focused on differences according to such factors as age, gender, and school grade and size. Researchers examined the survey responses from graduate students in the Educational Leadership Program at Northeast Louisiana University in…

There is a growing need in the field of teacher education to bridge the gap between theory and practice while creating dialogue for exploration, change, and growth. Proactive teacher educators should seek change in traditional inservice training and create more authentic and empowering professional development opportunities that are proactive as…

Science education and the preparation of science teachers have been of great concern over the past two decades. This research investigated the influence of an extended elementary science teaching practicum upon preservice elementary teachers' (N=19) science self-efficacy. It explored both quantitatively and qualitatively the progression of teacher…

A staff development program in two western states helps professionals in rural school systems provide comprehensive transition services to students with disabilities. The program was designed to be relevant to rural constituents and to overcome the lack of understanding of local needs by university personnel. A vision statement relating to desired…