This paper discusses how the process for IEP documentation was used in a training program for a group of young inexperienced teachers and teaching aides to effectively address the educational needs of children with diverse disabilities. Teachers at Kianh Centre in Vietnam received explicit instructions for writing effective functional individual…

For most of U.S. history, local communities were the primary arbiters of school quality. Beginning in the mid-twentieth century, states began assuming more and more control over school standards and outcomes. The question we seek to answer is whether and the extent to which a particular kind of local voice--the voice of education practitioners--is…

In this exploratory study, the authors examine Greek special education teachers' individual and collaborative teaching experiences in the context of their literacy instruction. The Five Foci Framework, situated in Vygotskian theory, is utilized in the study's design to examine special education teachers' individual and collaborative experiences…

Recognizing the need for information in public education, Congress mandated in the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) that all states create and disseminate annual school performance report cards. A decade after NCLB passed, school report cards are widely available for nearly every school in the country. As the amount of school performance data…

Data-based decision making is all the rage. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (2009) has emphatically declared, "I am a deep believer in the power of data to drive our decisions. Data gives us the roadmap to reform. It tells us where we are, where we need to go, and who is most at risk." In the past few years, all 50 states have adopted most or…

All programs of healthcare education face increasing change and daunting challenges to prepare new graduates for the real world of practice as care providers in complex systems. The necessity for change in nursing education is at a critical level, called on from a variety of sources. New nurses must be able to enter practice as competent, safe,…

The focus of this study involves the perceptions held by enrollment managers at the American Jesuit Catholic colleges and universities of national rankings of colleges and universities and the strategic use of this information. Enrollment management emerged within colleges and universities in response to increasing competition for incoming…

In the case of higher education, the hills are more like mountains of data that "we're accumulating at a ferocious rate," according to Gerry McCartney, CIO of Purdue University (Indiana). "Every higher education institution has this data, but it just sits there like gold in the ground," complains McCartney. Big Data and the new tools people are…

In spring 2013, the Washington Center administered a national survey to find what campuses assessed when they assessed their learning community programs, how they assessed those outcomes, and what they did with the results. Sixty-six campuses responded to the survey. Most campuses assess at least one measure of student success (pass rates, course…

Individuals have difficulty changing their causal beliefs in light of contradictory evidence. We hypothesized that this difficulty arises because people facing implausible causes give greater consideration to causal alternatives, which, because of their use of a positive test strategy, leads to differential weighting of contingency evidence.…

Motivated by the need to facilitate Net Generation students' information literacy (IL), or more specifically, to promote student understanding of legitimate, effective use of Web-based resources, this exploratory study investigated how analyzing, writing, posting, and monitoring Wikipedia entries might help students develop critical…

Social media are at the heart of the daily communications of adolescents. In many cases, however, adolescents are unaware of the consequences of the long-term availability of their online personal information. Given the rising prevalence of online background checks on potential partners, college applicants, and job candidates, online search…

In this society of digital environment, to keep pace with the technological change that causes the difficulties of information access together with royalty fees remunerated for making use of copyrighted materials, Creative Commons (CC) license is introduced. However, debates on the issues of copyright and CC license have widely arisen. This…

This chapter questions and reflects on the changing role of the foreign language and civilization lecturer as educator, when information literacy skills are situated in an undergraduate curriculum. As such, it does not set itself the task of providing solutions. Instead, it considers all the complications which occur en route to a greater use of…

Data are more than just test scores, and by effectively accessing and using different types of data--such as attendance, grades, and course-taking--teachers, parents, and school and district leaders can help ensure that every student is on a path for success every day, not just at the end of the school year. The 10 State Actions to Ensure…