In this teaching laboratory, the students are directed in an exercise that involves designing and performing an experiment to determine estrogen's role in regulating delayed implantation (diapause) in female rats. To encourage active participation by the students, a discussion question is provided before the laboratory exercise in which each…

In 2010, the National Association of School Psychologists approved the "Model for Comprehensive and Integrated School Psychological Services" (or the NASP Practice Model), codifying what an expanded role encompasses in the delivery of school-based psychological services. This study examined the role and function of school psychology…

This paper contains results of an empirical study that tested the efficacy and acceptability of two templates designed to fully involve students in proper and fair peer-assessments of their group project work (GPW) by providing concrete evidence of independent progressive documentation of their peers' contributions to the work-process and…

This study examines the perceptions of teachers in one Midwest school district relative to the current teacher evaluation system used in the district as well as a new model of teacher evaluation connected to Missouri's educator standards. To fully understand the perspective of the teachers, this study incorporates a mixed-methods approach which…

Measures of student disadvantage--or risk--are critical components of equity-focused education policies. However, the risk measures used in contemporary policies have significant limitations, and despite continued advances in data infrastructure and analytic capacity, there has been little innovation in these measures for decades. We develop a new…

The specifics of how growth models should be constructed and used to evaluate schools and teachers is a topic of lively policy debate in states and school districts nationwide. In this paper we take up the question of model choice and examine three competing approaches. The first approach, reflected in the popular student growth percentiles (SGPs)…

Many state departments of education have revised their state school counseling models to reflect the ASCA National Model for school counseling programs. Only a few states have developed statewide evaluation systems to gather information about program effectiveness and/or to promote effective local program evaluation. This qualitative study…

Service learning projects serve as a valuable tool for applying course concepts in a way to benefit both the students and community. However, they often require a significant amount of additional effort beyond that required of assigning conventional homework problems. When the projects take place in an online course setting, the level of…

This pilot project study explored the relationship between the newly created Educator Evaluation System by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in Missouri and a change in the professional performance of teachers and leaders. In particular, it addressed whether the process articulated in the state's new model resulted in a positive…

One of the core courses in the IS2010 Model Curriculum Guideline is "IS Strategy, Management and Acquisition" ("ISMA"). The authors redesigned their pre-IS2010 model Information Technology Management (ITM) course to meet the skills development stated in the ISMA course. Since the IT discipline is changing rapidly, the technical…

Teacher preparatory programs need to evaluate their programs to determine if they are producing highly effective teachers. This study utilized the professional development school (PDS) program versus the traditional program to determine if there was a difference in the promise and effectiveness of pre-service teachers. The study analyzed the…

With state and national policymakers eyeing ways to improve teacher preparation, a handful of education programs are becoming more intentional about how such "cooperating" teachers--as they're known in the lingo of teacher preparation--are selected and trained. That interest could grow as programs wrestle with the finer points of how to…

The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) is working to respond to increased interest in the use of growth models for school accountability. Growth models are based on tracking change in individual student achievement scores over multiple years. While growth models have been used for decades in academic research and program evaluation, a…

This brief policy analysis describes how four states, Kentucky, Missouri, New York and Virginia ensure a quality review process within their educational data system. Each state case study provides a brief description of their data system, how the data is used, how the state ensures quality data, and the benefits and challenges to development of…

This paper reports a problem-based learning model for the training of university students in the area of industrial energy efficiency, and discusses its context, contents, and the results from its implementation. The impact has been significant, with hundreds of university graduates trained and many of them now working in industry, leading their…