Created by teachers for teachers, the Math Academy tools and activities included in this booklet were designed to create hands-on activities and a fun learning environment for the teaching of mathematics to the students. This booklet contains the "Math Academy--Dining Out! Explorations in Fractions, Decimals, and Percents," which teachers can use…

The American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) developed this document as a resource for high school administrators, parents, and teachers who are interested in developing guidelines for physics curriculum and instruction in their school(s). These guidelines reflect the goals of the AAPT, with an emphasis on instructional strategies and…

The current paper presents the results of a large-scale, national, reading and writing curriculum survey and evaluates the alignment of the survey results to the reading and writing skills measured by the new SAT®. It was hypothesized that the skills measured by the writing and critical reading sections of the new SAT would be aligned to the…

Volume II contains six appendices to Volume I, including short summaries of the 18 schools that were studied. Appendices included in this report are: (1) Evaluation Methodology; (2) Promising Reform Strategies; (3) Descriptions of the Research-Based Methods or Strategies Being Used; (4) Short Summaries of 18 Comprehensive School Reform…

Our initial intention was to set out to explore the potential for implementing outcome-based assessment practices in a first year statistics unit. It has evolved into a search for a pedagogy enabling clear definition of the desired learning outcomes in our students, and alignment of instruction, student resources and assessment with these…

This report warns that if current trends continue, the United States will lose is preeminence in science and technology and its leadership position in innovation. In this report, the Business-Higher Education Forum (BHEF) proposes a four-part action plan in which business, higher education, and policy leaders support P-12 education leaders in…

Comprehensive school reform calls for a "whole-school" and coordinated approach to improve schools. The strategy differs from piecemeal and fragmented efforts that also in the past have seemed only to lead to short-lived changes. To stimulate whole-school reform across the country, Congress appropriated funds in FY1998 for the U.S.…

The Guam Education Policy Board initially adopted the Guam Public School System District Action Plan in May 2003. The DAP established the direction and details for improving academic performance in reading, math, and language arts by using the provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act as a framework. The adopted DAP was also used as a basis for…

This is the first of several papers developed from a faculty and student perspective describing a new distance learning (DL) model. Integral to the model are four interrelated families of multi-variant issues, referred to here as (a) the academic divide, (b) student misalignment, (c) administrative influences, and (d) the use of student…

In the year 1998, California began a massive experiment that focused on testing students and holding teachers and administrators accountable for results. The goal: dramatic, system-wide improvement. Schools' performance began to be measured using California's Academic Performance Index (API). In 2001, with passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB),…

Training preservice teachers to develop a predisposition toward constructivist instruction is a major goal for many faculty in teacher education. One critical attribute of a constructivist teacher is a strong hold on pedagogical content knowledge. This study examined the prior knowledge of preservice science teachers and how that knowledge aligned…

This study profiles two high schools with high enrollments of low-income and racial/ethnic minority students: Thornton Fractional North High School (TF North) and Dumas High School (DHS). Both schools have substantial enrollments of low-income and racial/ethnic minority students and, despite the odds, are successfully preparing students for their…

In the knowledge economy, colleges and universities are realigning academic initiatives to link more closely with regional needs. They are unique catalysts for forming community alliances to focus on issues of economic development, neighborhood revitalization, and cultural tourism. In partnership with business, municipalities, and cultural…

In recent years educators and educational researchers in the U.S. have begun to introduce engineering design activities in secondary science classrooms for the purpose of scaffolding science learning as well as supporting such general problem-solving skills as decision making and working in teams. However, such curricula risk perpetuating a…

This report presents the findings of a Project undertaken to address the broad question of how to ensure the engagement with learning of all middle years students and how to encourage in them a higher order of learning objectives and outcomes both now and throughout life. It builds on current nationwide and international efforts at school reform,…