Across the country, many states are expanding their support for and implementation of Dual Enrollment programs, seeing them as opportunities to encourage students to go on to college--particularly those who historically might have had less opportunity and/or encouragement. As these programs expand, so does the need for professional development for…

A unique partnership between public charter schools, a civic chamber orchestra, and university school of music has brought music instruction to middle school students in central Ohio. This collaborative endeavor can serve as a model for charter schools administrators wishing to expand their curricular offerings to include music and other arts…

Both Ohio's state leadership and its foundation community recognized that, to move forward in a global economy, Ohio would need a highly trained workforce that would attract high tech companies to the state. Though STEM shortages have been a pervasive problem for decades, with the election of a new Governor in 2008, there was call to action from…

Extension has taught successful classes to address heart disease, yet heart disease remains the number one killer in the United States. The U.S. government's Million Hearts initiative seeks collaboration among colleges, local and state health departments, Extension and other organizations, and medical providers in imparting a consistent message…

This chapter describes consortial efforts within the Great Lakes Colleges Association to share expertise and programming to build research skills throughout the undergraduate curriculum. Strategies to scaffold research skill development are provided from Allegheny College, Kalamazoo College, and The College of Wooster.

Supporting students' mental health needs is critical in high-poverty urban school districts where many students are at risk for mental health problems. Although teacher-student relationships are at the core of student mental health promotion in the classroom, many teacher preparation programmes do not adequately prepare pre-service teachers…

The PDS partnership between the Cleveland State University Master of Urban Secondary Teaching (MUST) program and the Cleveland School of Science and Medicine (CSSM) has an established history of preparing educators to teach in urban schools. Recently awarded the NAPDS Award for Exemplary Professional Development School Achievement, this…

There are a variety of curricular approaches in physical education, any one of which can provide a framework and scheme that is the foundation of a physical education unit of study. This article will discuss the use of an adventure model to teach about diversity, multi-cultural understanding and tolerance. Teaching children diversity and tolerance…

Improving teacher quality in early education is a major part of ensuring young children's school readiness and closing the achievement gap. This is the book decision-makers and administrators need to begin developing coordinated, effective teacher quality systems--ones that not only get teachers ready for the classroom, but also promote continuous…

The major purpose of this descriptive report is to provide an overview of the structure, capacity, and roles of educational service agencies (ESAs) across five states--Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin--in the Great Lakes region, within the context of the broader statewide systems of support for educational improvement and progress.…

Conventional school improvement models traditionally involve "walled-in" approaches. These models focus primarily on academic learning strategies in response to standards-based accountabilities. Although positive outcomes have been documented, expanded school improvement models such as the Ohio Community Collaboration Model for School…

With 55 percent of the 53,400 students on free and reduced lunch programs, a 78 percent mobility rate, and a diverse population, Columbus City Schools (CCS) in Ohio faces the challenges common to other urban districts. In spite of the challenges, CCS has made a long-term commitment to engage students in high-quality physical education and physical…

Significant barriers exist to the implementation of evidence-based practices into routine mental health and substance abuse settings. This paper discusses the role and function of technical assistance centers to help support the implementation process using, as a guide, the experience of the Ohio Substance Abuse and Mental Illness Coordinating…

A collaborative team of faculty from The University of Akron (UA) in Akron, Ohio, and Kent State University (KSU) in Kent, Ohio, were awarded a federal grant from the U.S. Department of Education to develop a specialty area in the graduate speech-language pathology (SLP) programs of UA and KSU that would train a total of 32 SLP students (trainees)…

The Academy for Educational Development (AED) sent a research team to the University of Dayton (UD) on November 5-7, 2008, to conduct interviews with individuals who played significant roles in the university's teacher preparation program (see Appendix A). These interviews, along with additional materials provided by UD and identified by the AED…