In an effort to prepare American high school students for future careers, many states have implemented specific career readiness standards and programs. One such program is known as Extended Learning Opportunities (ELO), which are hands-on, credit-bearing experiences outside of the classroom with an emphasis on community-based career exploration.…

This article presents a project that is meant to deepen student understanding of what it would mean for one preference voting method to be "better" than another. In the project we show the students how to rigorously compare the methods of plurality and plurality with elimination, and we then allow them to compare two other voting methods…

In this paper we discuss how the products of student work during long-term, interdisciplinary curricular units at King Middle School, a grades 6-8 public school in Portland, Maine, through their aesthetic qualities, transformed people's understanding of what children were capable of. We argue that, to effectively understand student work of this…

Student-centered learning encompasses four overlapping and complementary principles (JFF, 2014): competency-based progression, personalization, flexibility in where and when learning takes place, and facilitation of key skills and dispositions such as agency and ownership. To date, few studies have attempted to quantitatively characterize…

In 2006, 4-H National Headquarters and National 4-H Council introduced an initiative aimed at increasing the number and quality of science, engineering, and technology programs that 4-H offers around the country, and increasing the number of youth involved in these programs. By engaging youth in informal science educational opportunities through…

The NEAIR (North East Association for Institutional Research) 2012 Conference Proceedings is a compilation of papers presented at the Bethesda, Maryland conference. Papers in this document include: (1) Can a Marketing Campaign Increase Response Rates to Online Course Evaluations? (Kimberly Puhala); (2) Developing Community College Peer…

The first-year activities of a project designed to implement the Experience Based Career Education (EBCE) program developed by the Appalachia Educational Laboratory at Greely High School, Maine School Administrative District #51 are described. Assessment of student outcomes used a pre- posttest design with one experimental group consisting of…

This twelfth edition of "The Condition of K-12 Public Education in Maine" is designed to provide Maine citizens, legislators, and educators a yearly report on the state of Maine public schools and education. This new edition updates educational information which appeared in earlier editions, and also provides information on several new…

Evidence suggests that tracking of students on the secondary level may not only be discriminatory, but also counterproductive to the personal, educational, and economic potential of all students. The English and Social Studies department of Oak Hill High School, in Wales, Maine, developed an intervention program concerning heterogeneous grouping…

The York County (Maine) Transition Project was designed to improve postsecondary education and employment opportunities for learning-disabled students. Three survey forms for evaluating the impact of the project comprise this document. The first survey is a six-page questionnaire targeted to practitioners. It gathers data on: (1) the project's…

This report evaluates a program developed to address the shortage of qualified special education teachers in rural school districts in Maine. The goal of the program is to offer accessible special education training at the baccalaureate degree level to transitionally and conditionally certified special education teachers and to educational…

"Education Indicators" are facts and statistics that help to describe a public education system. They are tools which are useful in examining and measuring the effectiveness of the system. Examples include information such as the amount of local funds raised to support local schools, per pupil expenditures, pupil-teacher ratios, and…

As everyone enters the 21st Century there is a great deal of discussion in business and education circles alike about the type of skills the youth will need to survive and thrive in this century. At the same time, there is little known today about the level of 21st Century skills students currently have. In part this is because, as a nation,…

The typical teaching techniques used by post secondary faculty in vocational technical institutes were identified and assessed to determine how helpful students felt these techniques were for their learning. Two surveys were conducted. One form was distributed to the faculty and the other to students of the six vocational technical institutes in…

The booklet provides a framework to guide development of curriculum components of the Maine Studies Curriculum Project. Funded in 1976 by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in response to a section of Maine School Law, the project aims to develop and test a K-12 curriculum, accompanying instructional resources, and a teacher education…