Good Principals Are the Key to Successful Schools: Six Strategies to Prepare More Good Principals

Defines strategies that state and local leaders can use to secure enough highly qualified principals. Draws from research and direct experiences in helping schools, universities, and state agencies rethink and redesign educational leadership programs

Curriculum Mapping in Academic Libraries

Librarians at four different academic institutions concurrently completed curriculum mapping projects using varying methods to analyze their information literacy instruction. Curriculum mapping is a process for systematically evaluating components of an instructional program for cohesiveness, proper sequencing, and goal achievement. There is a dearth of documentation of how this process has applied to an information literacy curriculum; however, the benefits of an organized examination of course progression is clear. The librarians explored curriculum mapping using different methodologies and approaches in order to formulate a more strategic approach to teaching students information literacy skills

Effective Organizational Practices for Middle and High School Grades

At the request of the Accountability Review Council, Research for Action identified effective organizational practices used by better performing schools serving substantial numbers of low income middle and high school students in the School District of Philadelphia. These practices are organized into three spheres: Conditions for Teaching, Student-Centered School Community, and Instructional Program. For each sphere, the report offers broad strategies and specific practices to enact the strategies. Nuanced school case studies show how the practices can work synergistically and coherently in schools to help students succeed

Narrative in Technical Communication

The focus of this research is on the involvement of narrative learning within technical communication and the benefits that such an involvement can bring to the field. I analyze literature from within technical communication to determine how narrative is perceived, as well as the traditions in technical communication that made the field resistant to the use of narrative in the past. These findings are considered with respect to the history and definition of narrative, as well as to how narrative can improve learning outcomes when compared to expository learning approaches commonly used in technical documentation. While narrative is not a new concept to technical communication, this thesis offers new insights through a multidisciplinary approach that considers the work of philosophers and narratologists that are relatively unknown to the field. Philosophers Daniel Dennett and Jerome Bruner, as well as narratologists Gerard Genette, David Rudrum, and David Darby, show that narrative forms the basis for the construction of reality and that all human learning is based on the stories that we construct to give meaning to the world. Research studies conducted on the efficacy of narrative based learning are discussed in detail and an analysis of the areas where narrative use would most benefit technical communication is provided. Recommendations are made for the future use of narrative in technical documentation and for further research on the implementation and cost of narrative solutions

Measure for Measure: A Critical Consumers' Guide to Reading Comprehension Assessments for Adolescents

A companion report to Carnegie's Time to Act, analyzes and rates commonly used reading comprehension tests for various elements and purposes. Outlines trends in types of questions, stress on critical thinking, and screening or diagnostic functions

USE SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS TO IDENTIFY THE KNOWLEDGE-HOLE FROM LEARNING PORTFOLIOS STRUCTURES THROUGH WEB LOGS IN COGNITIVE APPRENTICESHIP AND GOAL-BASED WEB-BASED LEARNING SYSTEM

This paper presented an in-progress research model to develop, design and test an innovated acculturated adaptive web-based learning systems which based on Vygotsky ＇s zone of proximal development (ZPD) development theory. Based on ZPD related theories and researches, this research proposed to use cognitive apprenticeship instruction model as design guides to develop the activity functions to support acculturation ZPD instructions in MOODLE, a most popular opensource web-based learning system in the world. A support acculturation ZPD instruction adaptive system engine/mechanism, Heuristic Adaptive Learning Pattern (HALP), were also proposed in this paper. The major proposed designed adaptive function will base on the Blockmodeling method that used in social network analysis methodology which modelling the learner’s learning portfolio and learning path

The Relationship between English Speaking and Writing Proficiency and Its Implications for Instruction

As educators and researchers pursue greater understanding of the best strategies for teaching English learners, the two productive language domains—speaking and writing—have traditionally been addressed separately. With the increasing emphasis of Common Core standards and their emphasis on all students gaining more advanced and academic writing skills, this study endeavors to explore the potential relationship between speaking and listening skills for English learners. In addition to the analysis of standardized test results in these domains, pre- and post-test results and student surveys are examined to determine the effect of instruction in argumentative speaking on students’ ability to write argumentatively. Findings included: English learners would be best served by purposeful design of speaking instruction which uses scaffolding and analysis of exemplars to teach standard academic language models and heuristics. Such purposeful instruction of speaking appears to be transferable, also benefiting English learners’ writing skills. However, while students are able to transfer skills relating to critical analysis and organization, they will need additional instruction on skills, such as spelling and other conventions, which are exclusive to writing. Teaching rhetoric through the use of the speaking domain also presents the advantage of emphasizing the need for good planning. The time-bound nature of speaking, which doesn’t allow for significant pausing or revision, forces learners to adopt good planning habits that, when transferred to writing, become highly beneficial. Therefore, it is essential to recognize the association between spoken and written language and the strategic way it can be utilized to benefit instruction

Integrated Content and Language Instruction: Lecturers’ Views and Classroom Instructional Practices

The objective of this study was to investigate how integrated content and language instruction, where English is used as the medium of instruction in teaching Mathematics and Science was viewed by the lecturers of the content subjects. The study also examined whether or not it had impacts on the lecturers classroom instructional practices. Cummins’ (1981, 1984) Content Based Instruction approach was used as the framework for the study. This study employed a mixed methods approach combining interview, classroom observation, and a survey questionnaire. Twelve lecturers participated in interviews; twenty responded to a survey questionnaire, and four participated in classroom observations. Findings of the study revealed that most lecturers viewed positively the integrated content and language instruction. This view had impacts on their classroom practices where modifications were made in order to accommodate the implementation of the policy. This study provides information for policy makers, teacher educators, and content teachers to understand how the policy is articulated and how it is implemented in the Indonesian teaching context

State Education Agencies\u27 Acquisition and Use of Research Knowledge for School Improvement Strategies

Over the last 20 years, state education agencies (SEAs) have been given considerably more responsibilities for directing and guiding the improvement of low-performing schools. At the same time, federal policies strongly pressed SEAs to use research to design these supports. Very few studies have explored the SEA as an organization, or its role in accessing and using research. Likewise, few, if any, have studied the role of social networks in the organization and flow of information in SEAs. This exploratory study was designed to fill those gaps by examining where and how a purposive sample of three SEAs searched for, incorporated, and used research and other types of knowledge to design, implement, and refine state school improvement policies, programs and practices