More Efficient High Schools in Maine: Emerging Student-Centered Learning Communities

American K-12 public education all across the nation is at a difficult and critical crossroads. We are at a time when keen global competition underscores the need for exceptional performance in our primary and secondary schools. Yet, state and federal governments face unprecedented budget deficits and limited resources for the foreseeable future. Additionally, our schools are being called upon to do an even better job of preparing students for the 21st century. There is growing evidence that success in the 21st Century requires more than what has traditionally been the content of schooling. It requires more and different types of knowledge, skills, and learning. To help students acquire this knowledge base and skills, many educators and leaders are calling for transformative changes in our schools and changes in how we help students learn. This transformative change is called by many names: performance-based learning, standards-based learning, and student-centered learning. The Nellie Mae Education Foundation (NMEF) describes this transformation to more student-centered learning as the need for:... growing a greater variety of higher quality educational opportunities that enable all learners -- especially and essentially underserved learners -- to obtain the skills, knowledge and supports necessary to become civically engaged, economically self-sufficient lifelong learners. (2011) Can our schools be transformed to meet these challenges? More importantly, can they be high performing, efficient, and student-centered at the same time? To explore these questions, the Center for Education Policy, Applied Research, and Evaluation at the University of Southern Maine conducted a study in 2010-2011 of a sample of Maine high schools. Funded in part by the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, the study examined the degree to which these More Efficient high schools were also student-centered. In 2010, NMEF identified some of the key principles and attributes of studentcentered learning. The principles are that: Student-centered education systems provide all students equal access to the skills and knowledge needed for college and career readiness in today's world. Student-centered education systems align with current research on the learning process and motivation. Student-centered education systems focus on mastery of skills and knowledge. Student-centered education systems build student's identities through a positive culture with a foundation of strong relationships and high expectations. Student-centered education systems empower and support parents, teachers, administrators, and other community members to encourage and guide learners through their educational journey. The key attributes are that: Curriculum, instruction and assessment embrace the skills and knowledge needed for success. Community assets are harnessed to support and deepen learning experiences. Time is used flexibly and includes learning opportunities outside the traditional school day and year. Mastery-based strategies are employed to allow for pacing based on proficiency in skills and knowledge. The goal of the study reported here was to determine to what extent these principles and attributes may be found in the high schools. To that end, once a sample of More Efficient high schools was identified, the beliefs, strategies, and practices found in these schools were examined in light of the 2010 NMEF key principles and attributes

Blending Learning: The Evolution of Online and Face-to-Face Education from 20082015

In 2008, iNACOL produced a series of papers documenting promising practices identified throughout the field of K–12 online learning. Since then, we have witnessed a tremendous acceleration of transformative policy and practice driving personalized learning in the K–12 education space. State, district, school, and classroom leaders recognize that the ultimate potential for blended and online learning lies in the opportunity to transform the education system and enable higher levels of learning through competency-based approaches.iNACOL's core work adds significant value to the field by providing a powerful practitioner voice in policy advocacy, communications, and in the creation of resources and best practices to enable transformational change in K–12 education.We worked with leaders throughout the field to update these resources for a new generation of pioneers working towards the creation of student-centered learning environments.This refreshed series, Promising Practices in Blended and Online Learning, explores some of the approaches developed by practitioners and policymakers in response to key issues in K–12 education, including:Blended Learning: The Evolution of Online and Face-to-Face Education from 2008-2015;Using Blended and Online Learning for Credit Recovery and At-Risk Students;Oversight and Management of Blended and Online Programs: Ensuring Quality and Accountability; andFunding and Legislation for Blended and Online Education.Personalized learning environments provide the very best educational opportunities and personalized pathways for all students, with highly qualified teachers delivering world-class instruction using innovative digital resources and content. Through this series of white papers, we are pleased to share the promising practices in K–12 blended, online, and competency education transforming teaching and learning today

Evaluation of the School Administration Manager Project

Examines the results to date of a Wallace-supported project to help principals delegate some administrative and managerial tasks to school administration managers and spend more time interacting with teachers, students and others on instructional matters

Creating Online Lessons: A Faculty Development Seminar Series

The World Wide Web is being used increasingly to deliver instruction in medical education. Consequently, there is a need to train faculty in developing and implementing online instruction. We developed and implemented a seminar series to teach faculty to create educationally sound, well designed online instruction. Instruction was delivered to 15 participants via a six session seminar on developing web based lessons, supplemented with web-based instruction. First, the participants learned the basics of instructional design via a web based module. They then completed content outlines for their online lessons prior to the first seminar. Lesson development, web site development and the use of a web based instructional shell to implement the online lessons were each taught in two two hour sessions. Eight participants developed online lessons and four actually implemented them. Feedback was mostly positive, with suggestions for improvement. All eight participants who completed the series said they would recommend it to their colleagues. Because a longitudinal workshop type of seminar series requires a large amount of participant time outside of class, a six month seminar series may be too long. It is important at the beginning of the series to help participants select topics suitable for online instruction and to help them narrow their topics. We may change the attendance guidelines so faculty would attend only the session on instructional design and have their staff attend the technical sessions on web site design, HTML editing and online course delivery systems. This would better match the actual practice of faculty designing the instruction and staff developing it

Charting Success: Using Practical Measures to Assess Information Literacy Skills in the First-Year Writing Course

Objective – The aim was to measure the impact of a peer-to-peer model on information literacy skill-building among first-year students at a small commuter college in the United States. The University of New Hampshire (UNH) is the state’s flagship public university and UNH Manchester is one of its seven colleges. This study contributed to a program evaluation of the Research Mentor Program at UNH Manchester whereby peer writing tutors are trained in basic library research skills to support first-year students throughout the research and writing process. Methods – The methodology employed a locally developed pre-test/post-test instrument with fixed-choice and open-ended questions to measure students’ knowledge of the library research process. Anonymized data was collected using an online survey with SurveyMonkey™ software. A rubric was developed to score the responses to open-ended questions. Results – The study indicated a positive progression toward increased learning for the three information literacy skills targeted: 1) using library resources correctly, 2) building effective search strategies, and 3) evaluating sources appropriately. Students scored higher in the fixed-choice questions than the open-ended ones, demonstrating their ability to more effectively identify the applicable information literacy skill than use the language of information literacy to describe their own research behavior. Conclusions – The assessment methodology used was an assortment of low-key, locally-developed instruments that provided timely data to measure students understanding of concepts taught and to apply those concepts correctly. Although the conclusions are not generalizable to other institutions, the findings were a valuable component of an ongoing program evaluation. Further assessment measuring student performance would strengthen the conclusions attained in this study

Integrating Information Literacy into the Virtual University: A Course Model

published or submitted for publicatio

Evaluation of the Jim Joseph Foundation Education Initiative Year 3 Report

Launched in 2010, the Jim Joseph Foundation Education Initiative supports programs at three flagship Jewish institutions of higher education: Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR), Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), and Yeshiva University (YU). As part of this initiative, HUC-JIR, JTS, and YU designed and piloted new programs, enhanced existing programs, and provided financial assistance to additional programs.American Institutes for Research (AIR) is conducting an independent evaluation of the Jim Joseph Foundation Education Initiative. This report is the third in a series of five annual reports that describe progress toward accomplishing the goals of the Education Initiative