Adolescent Literacy and the Achievement Gap: What Do We Know and Where Do We Go From Here?

Reviews research and program initiatives focused on improving adolescent academic achievement by targeting literacy. Provides ideas for collaboration and coordination of funding efforts to improve the literacy achievement of under-performing adolescents

A Working Model for Evaluating Academic Excellence in Geoscience Education, Undergraduate, and K-12

This article discusses a model for academic excellence in the geosciences which can be used for K-12 and undergraduate education. The model combines criteria for excellence derived from studies of the National Research Council, the National Academy of Sciences, and other national professional organizations. It consists of two major components: opportunity for students to learn, and attainment at the highest structural and multidimensional levels. The author concludes that this model will be most useful as a working model for evaluation, as a reference for comparison, and as a guide for reaching excellence in geoscience education efforts. Educational levels: Graduate or professional

Time to Act: An Agenda for Advancing Adolescent Literacy for College and Career Success

Presents a vision for literacy instruction from fourth through twelfth grade; examines the challenges; outlines the elements of success, including professional development and use of data; and lays out a national agenda for change based on case studies

Mobilizing Communities to Support the Literacy Development of Urban Youth: A Conceptual Framework and Strategic Planning Model

Offers a strategic planning model for community mobilization around adolescent literacy development. Explores spheres of influence; strategies for schools, community groups, and families; outcomes; and lessons learned from other community change efforts

Reading Next: A Vision for Action and Research in Middle and High School Literacy

Outlines fifteen key elements that educators can use to develop an effective adolescent literacy intervention program. Focuses on elements of interventions that are most promising for students that struggle with reading and writing after third grade

Montenegro in the PISA study

Montenegro, a country that has been in transition for the last two decades, is trying intensively to restructure its socioeconomic system and reform the main social systems, such as the education system, health care, the judicial system, the social welfare system, etc. Numerous strategic documents have been adopted in the past decade emphasising the importance of making the country’s abundant natural resources functional, and of making the utilisation of human resources in the country significantly more effective. In order to achieve improvements in one of the key areas of Montenegrin development, human resources, a reform of the entire education system was launched in the first years of 21st century. The processes of joining the European Union, whose fundamental principles are the free movement of people, goods, services and capital, have also significantly increased the need to raise the quality of the education of Montenegro’s citizens and to improve the competitiveness of the Montenegrin workforce in the labour market. However, we believe that the results of PISA testing in 2006 and 2009 suggest that Montenegro is far from the proclaimed goals of reform in the field of education, and that for the coming years and decades considerable attention should be devoted to improvement of the education system. PISA tests should be understood in a much wider context, not only as a reflection of curricular reform and standards of verification and assessment of students’ knowledge, but rather as a set of guidelines that indicate the direction in which to develop and improve the education system, so that society can really ‘invest’ in the education of young people. It is a very problematic fact that from the time of testing in 2009 until April 2011, nobody in Montenegro published any technical or scientific analysis of the success, or rather failure, of Montenegrin students in PISA testing. We believe that the use of this study should be significantly increased; not for comparing academic achievements with those of students from other countries, but primarily for improving educational policy and defining the strategic orientation of the development of the education system in Montenegro. Therefore, the absence of analysis implies an absence of certain professional activities focused on training teachers and improving the quality of students’ knowledge. (DIPF/Orig.

Navigating information, facilitating knowledge: the library, the academy, and student learning

Understanding the nature and complementarity of the phenomena of information and knowledge lend not only epistemological clarity to their relationship, but also reaffirms the place of the library in the academic mission of knowledge transfer, acquisition, interpretation, and creation. These in turn reassert the legitimacy of the academic library as necessary participant in the teaching enterprise of colleges and universities. Such legitimacy induces an obligation to teach, and that obligation needs to be explored and implemented with adequate vigor and reach. Librarians and the academy must, however, concede that the scope of the task calls for a solution that goes beyond shared responsibilities. Academic libraries should assume a full teaching function even as they continue their exploration and design of activities and programs aimed at reinforcing information literacy in the various disciplines on campus. All must concede that need for collaboration cannot provide grounds for questioning the desirability of autonomous teaching status for the academic library in information literacy educatio

A multi-dimensional approach to principalship

In the last two decades, principalship within further education has moved from being the chief academic officer to one which has bought about the combination of the chief executive element with the academic role, imposing greater demands and levels of accountability on the postholder. In light of these changes, it is appropriate to ask what is known about the nature of the role and how individuals can be encouraged to aspire to principalship. This paper considers what principals themselves perceive the role to involve and looks at existing literature on the way in which the principalship can be categorised. Relatively little has been written on the role of principals within further education colleges, yet at a time when Frearson (2005), Hargreave and Fink (2006) and Davies and Davies (2011) are debating the 'timebomb' within educational leadership more needs to be understood about the nature of the role if individuals are to develop into the next generation of college leaders

Reading at risk: why effective literacy practice is not effective.

The gap between high and low achievers in reading is wide in New Zealand compared to other countries as shown in PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) 2001 and 2006 studies. Students of minority backgrounds and low socio-economic status are over-represented in the low achieving category. As the primary response to reduce the achievement gap, the Government developed and distributed the literacy teaching reference Effective Literacy Practice in Years 1 to 4. This article examines Effective Literacy Practice against current scientificbased international research in the teaching of reading, with particular emphasis on the teaching of reading to students at risk. Research evidence shows that an explicit and systematic approach to teaching reading is critical to the success of reading achievement with at-risk students. With a heavy leaning towards incidental learning, Effective Literacy Practice fails to provide teachers with the necessary knowledge to effectively teach the critical components of reading

Education alignment

This essay reviews recent developments in embedding data management and curation skills into information technology, library and information science, and research-based postgraduate courses in various national contexts. The essay also investigates means of joining up formal education with professional development training opportunities more coherently. The potential for using professional internships as a means of improving communication and understanding between disciplines is also explored. A key aim of this essay is to identify what level of complementarity is needed across various disciplines to most effectively and efficiently support the entire data curation lifecycle