A science department on the campus of the University of Illinois has received numerous national awards for excellence in undergraduate teaching. The secret to their success? For nearly two decades, they have collaboratively used evidence-based instructional practices (EBIP) in their introductory level courses. Despite these successes and efforts…

During a 2019 workshop, the American Association of Universities (AAU) convened experts involved in leading, researching, evaluating and funding efforts to transform undergraduate STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) teaching across all sectors of higher education. The goal was to synthesize essential issues and challenges in…

There have been calls for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) faculty in higher education to transition from traditional lecturing to instructional practices that are supported by empirical evidence. Administrators can coordinate such transitions through organized change initiatives. At the same time, there has been a shift…

In this paper, we report on formal semi-structured interviews with seven well-established outdoor education (OE) academics from around the world who have navigated the decline and/or closure of an outdoor education program in their university. The interviews sought to understand the reasons why their once-vibrant program had declined or been…

Appropriate assessment practices are recognized as a critical part of the learning process and represent a key component of quality physical education. Recent shifts in school reform efforts toward more accountability in the United States and an emerging emphasis on student-centered approaches challenge historical approaches to assessment.…

Catalonia has a long tradition of school innovation movements. These have increased in recent years as public administration and private entities have initiated substantial school reforms oriented toward the use of evidence in teaching practice. As the Catalan education system is highly autonomous, not all schools have embraced the…

Integration of research into teaching is a major area of interest in the field of higher education. Considerable work has been done on how staff and students view this integration, how it can be achieved in practice and how it might best be researched by scholars. However, relatively little research has considered how research-informed teaching…

"Towards Rational Education" explores how education can become rational by serving character building, rational thinking and the common good. It uses evidence-based psychology, philosophy, sociology and political science to support transforming education and provides a brand-new framework for effective universal education. This book…

Improving student performance, especially that of those learners who experience poverty, disabilities, language barriers, or some combination of these factors, is an ongoing challenge for many, if not all, school districts. It can be particularly so for smaller or more geographically isolated districts that, compared to their larger urban…

Blended instruction integrating off-line and on-line teaching has become an important instrument for promoting educational reform and innovation. However, the results of current empirical studies diverge on the effect of blended instruction on student performance, which necessitates further research on the effectiveness of blended instruction and…

In this paper, we investigate how a Benchlearning program for principals in Norway and Sweden supports changes in Norwegian principals' leadership practices. The program design builds on principles for practical action research. The aim of the program was to inspire changes in the principals' leadership practices that encourage innovative school…

The term "Ya Basta" ("Enough! Stop!") has been used to capture the frustration of teachers who are being required (through political leveraging) to implement the intervention program labeled as EGRA (formerly Early Grade Reading Assessment and now Early Grade Reading Activity) in schools in their countries. Historically, the…

This exploratory study was commissioned by the Education Endowment Foundation (the EEF). The report presents findings on the challenges facing schools in disadvantaged circumstances (characterised by the EEF as 'Priority Schools'). Priority Schools, which include both primary and secondary schools, have a high proportion of pupils eligible for…

Public education in the United States has been undergoing a shift from an empirical tradition in which practices and policies are derived from research, practice, reflection, and implementation. In this empirical tradition, professionals embrace a culture and commitment to evidence-based practices (EBPs) and expect that practices and policies in…

San José State University, in partnership with California State University-Los Angeles and Cal Poly Pomona, are developing supportive methods to transition STEM faculty from lecture-based instruction to instruction using active learning pedagogies. These efforts, sponsored by the Department of Education's First in the World Grant Program, focus on…