ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
How Course Redesign at the University of Maryland Is Improving Learning, Lowering Costs, and Increasing Graduation Rates. The Abell Report. Volume 24, No.1
Author: Abell Foundation
Date: 2011-01-00
Type: Collected Works - Serial
Subjects: Curriculum Development,Curriculum Design,Educational Improvement,Costs,Graduation Rate,Pilot Projects,Undergraduate Study,Time to Degree,Success,Urban Schools,Urban Renewal,Housing,Financial Support

Four years ago, the University of Maryland (UM) Board of Regents responded to the national crisis in the college experience--the high incidence of student failure and dropout, the cost of a college degree, and the number of years it was taking to earn one--by contracting with Dr. Carol A. Twigg, president of the National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT) and a nationally recognized expert in the field of university course redesign. Defined as the process of revamping entire courses to take advantage of information technology capabilities to achieve better learning outcomes, course redesign embraces modern methods of information dissemination and knowledge development, and rethinks the way instruction is delivered, especially in large-enrollment core classes. Dr. Twigg formulated a pilot study of nine undergraduate courses with high dropout, withdrawal, or failure rates, or other measurable challenges, at nine universities within the UM system. Associate vice chancellors Dr. Nancy Shapiro and Dr. Donald Spicer directed the project, with the objective of taking the lead in the redesign of selected courses to increase graduation rates, decrease failures, shorten the length of time it takes to earn a degree, and lower costs--to both the students and the university. The results of these course-redesign initiatives were transformative, and get high praise from UM professors and administrators active in the adapting of course-redesign ideas. This issue of the Abell Report describes the success that University of Maryland Eastern Shore, Frostburg State University, and University of Maryland Baltimore County have had in implementing course redesign. It also discusses course redesign as pedagogical innovation, it's impact on the University System of Maryland, the financial costs and rewards of course redesign, and the future of course redesign. A second article offers a salute from the Abell Foundation to Bridge Private Lending and its president, David Borinsky for helping to revive the Oliver street neighborhood in Baltimore City, transforming a once-abandoned inner-city neighborhood into a place that is safe for children.
Reliability and Validity Study of the Mobile Learning Adoption Scale Developed Based on the Diffusion of Innovations Theory
Author: Celik, Ismail
Date: 2014-10-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Electronic Learning,Measures (Individuals),Adoption (Ideas),Likert Scales,Reliability,Construct Validity,Factor Analysis,Innovation,Pretests Posttests,Correlation,Decision Making,Scores

In this study, a mobile learning adoption scale (MLAS) was developed on the basis of Rogers&apos; (2003) Diffusion of Innovations Theory. The scale that was developed consists of four sections. These sections are as follows: Stages in the innovation-decision process, Types of m-learning decision, Innovativeness level and attributes of m-learning. There is one question at the level of classification regarding the investigated characteristics of the participants in the first three sections of the scale. The last section of the scale is composed of 18 items and 5 sub-dimensions in the 7-item Likert type. MLAS was developed in three stages. In the first stage, a detailed review of literature was performed and an item pool was formed. In the second stage, explanatory factor analysis was performed to determine the factor structure of the scale while confirmatory factor analysis was performed to test whether the factors formed confirmed the theory or not. In the final stage of the study, the reliability of the scale was determined through item, test-retest reliability and internal consistency (Cronbach Alpha) analyses. In conclusion, the scale developed within the scope of this study was shown to yield valid and reliable scores. The following are appended: (1) Mobile Learning (M-Learning) Adoption Scale; and (2) Mobil Ögrenme (M-Ögrenme) Benimseme Ölçegi.
Incongruence in Scoring Practices of Answer Scripts and Their Implications: Need for Urgent Examination Reforms in Secondary Pre-Service Teacher Education
Author: Gafoor, K. Abdul
Date: 2014-08-23
Type: Speeches/Meeting Papers
Subjects: Preservice Teacher Education,Secondary School Curriculum,Testing Programs,Testing,Educational Change,Scoring,Evaluation Criteria,Grading,Teacher Educators,Educational Practices,Time on Task,Semi Structured Interviews,Observation,Educational Strategies,Cognitive Style,Answer Sheets,Foreign Countries

In view of the strengthening momentum in efforts to reforms in examinations in higher education of India and Kerala in particular, and holding that teacher education is in privileged position to initiate examination reforms in higher education by virtue of its link with both school education and the higher education, this paper focuses attention to a number of practical challenges in the scoring of answer scripts of B.Ed degree examinations. Investigating the length of answer scripts, reading speed of teacher educators, and requirement of number of scripts to be evaluated by teacher educators, this paper further explores the criteria applied by evaluators in scoring the scripts and the match/mismatch between the type of question included in the examination and the real scheme of scoring applied while evaluating the scripts. Employing analysis of question papers and answer scripts, and structured interview with evaluators in a centralized valuation camp in one university of Kerala, the study found that with an average speed of 136 words/minute in reading answer scripts among teacher educators, and length of answer scripts from 2352 to 3696 words depending upon the paper, the estimated time for reading a script ranges from 17.29 to 27.17 minutes. The actual time (7.85 minutes) spent on evaluation is less than half the estimated time. Evaluators reports valuing on &quot;points only' &quot;scanning for terms and phrases&quot; &quot;scoring by habit&quot; etc. though the question papers frequently require the students to explain, describe, distinguish, define, bring about meaning, how and why questions apart from what questions, listing and outlining. Conducting and evaluating online examinations, multiple-choice-items and development of evaluation competencies and further strengthening of contents of measurement and evaluation at M.Ed level may help remedy the situation.
Students with Disabilities Can Succeed! The Abell Report. Volume 26, No.7
Author: Hettleman, Kalman R.
Date: 2013-10-00
Type: Collected Works - Serial
Subjects: Disabilities,Special Education,Educational Change,Change Strategies,Accessibility (for Disabled),Academic Standards,Educational Policy,Expectation,Academic Achievement,Cognitive Ability,Student Rights,Performance Factors,Barriers,Politics of Education,Extended School Year,Elementary Secondary Education

The One Year Plus policy of Baltimore City Public Schools described in this Newsletter has the potential to breathe new life into &quot;special education&quot; for students with disabilities. In recent decades, many waves of K-12 education reform--including the No Child Left Behind Act, charter schools, alternative teacher recruitment paths, tougher teacher evaluations, better data to drive instruction, and a stronger research base for &quot;reading by nine&quot;--have produced trickle-down gains for students with disabilities. Special education, despite its lofty ideals, remains not nearly special enough. That situation could change as a result of One Year Plus, Baltimore's transformative initiative, implemented system wide in 2012-2013. One Year Plus raises the bar dramatically for the academic progress that students with disabilities are expected to achieve. Under the policy, students who are not severely cognitively disabled have a right to special education services &quot;that will enable them to meet state academic standards&quot;. This Newsletter examines how One Year Plus works and the two foundations on which the policy is built.
Sending out an S.O.S. for SES (Supplemental Educational Services). The Abell Report. Volume 24, No.5
Author: Jacobson, Joan
Date: 2011-09-00
Type: Collected Works - Serial
Subjects: Supplementary Education,Program Effectiveness,Federal Legislation,Educational Legislation,Academic Achievement,Public Schools,Student Improvement,Educational Improvement,Tutoring,Reading Achievement,Mathematics Achievement,Privatization,Student Recruitment,Progress Monitoring

Each year, under the federal program called Supplemental Educational Services (SES), the Baltimore City Public School System (City Schools) pays educational vendors millions of public dollars to tutor thousands of its poorest students in its lowest achieving schools. Established in 2002 by the federal No Child Left Behind Act, SES was created to improve academic achievement for students whose math and reading scores are among the lowest in the nation's public schools. Like other large urban districts, Baltimore City Public Schools is a prime beneficiary of this federal program. However, despite this large expense in public funds, the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE), like other state education agencies across the country, has no credible evidence that SES is making a difference. As required by federal law, City Schools has spent $55 million on the program over the last nine years. In the 2010-11 school year alone, City Schools was required to allocate $12 million for SES tutoring to serve 5,769 students in 41 schools. This study finds that although the federal law expects the SES program to improve academic performance, it neither sets standards for evaluating students' progress nor does it require state education agencies or local school systems to provide evidence of improvement to the U.S. Department of Education or to the public.
Years after a Landmark Court Decision, Connecticut's Solution to School Segregation Shows Promise: Can It Inform Action in Baltimore? The Abell Report. Volume 26, No.5
Author: Eaton, Susan
Date: 2013-06-00
Type: Collected Works - Serial
Subjects: School Segregation,Equal Education,Public Schools,School Desegregation,Magnet Schools,Urban Schools,Desegregation Methods,Desegregation Litigation,Elementary Secondary Education,Desegregation Effects,Public Housing

As of summer 2012, there are 31 interdistrict magnet schools in the Greater Hartford region of Connecticut, including those at The Learning Corridor (a 14-acre compound with roughly 1,570 students in attendance among an elementary, middle, and two high schools), enrolling about 13,000 students and supported by a mix of state, local, and philanthropic funds. (Four more are scheduled to open this fall.) Another state-funded program, called Open Choice, enrolls about 1,700 students and provides transportation for children who live in Hartford to attend suburban schools. Students who live in Hartford's suburbs can also transfer into Hartford through this program, though only a few dozen have chosen that option in recent years. In the larger national public education context, where entrenched racial and economic segregation is the norm, the purposeful integration effort that has taken root and blossomed here is undoubtedly an outlier. But it is an educational anomaly that may be instructive for other racially and economically stratified regions. Created in response to a 1996 state court ruling, the schools and programs in and around Hartford have not only substantially reduced the share of students of color in high-poverty, segregated schools, but they have also engendered a broad array of innovative educational options that have proven appealing to families of all racial and economic backgrounds and resulted in promising outcomes for the students who take part. How did all this come into being in of all places, Connecticut, one of the nation's wealthiest and most economically unequal states? The story of what emerged in Connecticut--and why--is instructive, not just for Baltimore, but also for the numerous metropolitan areas across the country beset by segregation and educational inequality. This story is presented in this edition of the Abell Report. A second article provides a salute from the Abell Foundation to Emerging Technology Centers (ETC), an initiative of the Baltimore Development Corporation, a nonprofit technology business incubator that works with early-stage Baltimore-based technology entrepreneurs.
Confidentiality Laws: Protections for Kids or Cloak of Secrecy for Agencies? The Abell Report. Volume 23, No.3
Author: Soler, Mark
Date: 2010-05-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: At Risk Students,Confidential Records,Confidentiality,Juvenile Justice,Violence,Public Agencies,Privacy,Shared Resources and Services,Juvenile Courts,State Legislation,Disclosure

Any analysis of confidentiality laws begins with a discussion of the interests involved. Children and families involved in the juvenile justice system have important interests in keeping their records confidential, yet, at the same time, when youth under the care or custody of state or local agencies commit violent crimes, or are the victims of abuse or neglect, the public has strong interests in obtaining information that is timely and accurate. When the media publish information about violent incidents involving young people under state care, public agencies have their own strong interests in correcting misinformation in the public domain about agency operations and in providing context information to enable a fuller understanding of what policies are in place and why. There are clearly valid and important interests on all sides of this issue. Children and families have legitimate concerns about protecting their privacy, however, and the Supreme Court has taken a strong position in support of the &quot;monitoring&quot; or &quot;watchdog&quot; function of the public and the press, which requires some degree of openness and transparency. Information sharing among public agencies is being offered as one remedy to the above situation and states are working to come to a consensus on how this can be accomplished and still protect minor children and their families. A second article in this issue describes &quot;Banner Neighborhoods,&quot; which was founded in 1982 as a neighborhood project in Southeast Baltimore. Its purpose is to help elderly homeowners on a fixed income maintain their homes, prolonging the years that they can live independently in their neighborhoods.
Baltimore City's School Buildings Not Making the Grade: Nearly 9 in 10 Need Modernization to Accelerate Academic Gains. The Abell Report. Volume 23, No.4
Author: Abell Foundation
Date: 2010-06-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Urban Schools,School Buildings,Educational Facilities Improvement,Public Schools,Educational Improvement,Human Factors Engineering,Lighting,Health,Safety,Educational Environment,Teacher Recruitment,Teacher Persistence,Educational Finance,Financial Support,School District Wealth,State Aid,Planning,Change Strategies,State Government,Government Role,Taxes,Federal Aid,Resource Allocation,Low Income Groups

Recent reforms in Baltimore City Public Schools (City Schools) appear to be gaining traction and producing welcome improvements in student achievement and success. Enrollment has increased, educators are replacing unsuccessful programs with innovative ones, and new resources and organizational partnerships are being brought into the system. Despite the gains being made, many of Baltimore City's school facilities are inadequate to support the demands of a 21st century curriculum. Decades of inadequate funding have led to the deficient conditions seen in city school buildings, and numerous studies show that school buildings in poor physical condition negatively impact student academic achievement. The condition of school buildings must be of utmost concern to ensure a high quality education for students and for the well-being of the city as a whole. This report offers recommendations intended to provide both governmental leaders and the greater Baltimore communities with a path toward feasibly financing the modernization of all of Baltimore's public school buildings. [Also included in this report is a brief paper on Dr. Laura Spada, who set a ten-year goal of finding 250 jobs a year for &quot;Learn to Earn&quot; program trainees, and putting $47,500,000 into supporting famiilies and neighborhoods.]
Vitamins and Violence: Can Micronutrients Make Students Behave, Schools Safer and Test Scores Better? The Abell Report. Volume 23, No.6
Author: Rodgers, Joann Ellison
Date: 2010-08-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Nutrition,Violence,Student Behavior,Correlation,Behavior Problems,Etiology,Research Needs,Antisocial Behavior,Dietetics,Child Health,School Safety,Educational Environment,Child Development,Academic Achievement,Intervention,Research Methodology

The notion that vitamins, minerals, and other &quot;supplemental&quot; nutrients profoundly change behavior, mood, and intellect has origins as old as recorded history. Research has indeed suggested connections between nutrient deficiencies and behavior problems, but correlations are not the same as causality. This &quot;Abell Report&quot; is an attempt to get past the &quot;he said/she said&quot; debate, and to review, analyze, and come to some conclusions about the evidence for and against providing mass supplementation in the schools as a means of influencing behavior and cognition. It looks for common ground between the skeptics and the advocates, and offers some next steps if school officials find sufficient evidence to warrant a look at designing a supplementation pilot program or study in Baltimore City schools. Although suggestive studies continue to pile up, ongoing scientific uncertainty remains a major obstacle to public-health initiatives to feed supplements to at-risk populations--too little is understood about the role each nutrient might be playing in these studies. The recommendation to conduct more studies--or just better ones--is likely to frustrate those who want faster action, but the credible experts in the field see no real alternative. Supplements are no &quot;magic bullet&quot; to stop violence, antisocial behavior, depression, or any other behavior in schools or anywhere else.
Why Can't Johnny Read? The Abell Report. Volume 23, No.7
Author: Jacobson, Joan
Date: 2010-09-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Reading Skills,Vision Tests,Public Schools,Urban Schools,Access to Health Care,Assistive Technology,Child Health,Screening Tests,School Health Services,Disadvantaged Schools,Disadvantaged Youth,Elementary Schools,Secondary Schools,State Legislation,Visual Impairments,Counties,Public Health,Public Agencies,Change Strategies,Economic Development,Profiles

Baltimore's school-based vision-screening program may be leaving thousands of children with uncorrected eyesight problems. Vision screening in public schools is essential for students to learn, especially when low-income children face a high rate of eyesight problems and have poor access to health care. Left undetected and uncorrected, vision problems can interfere with reading and other visual skills that are critical to academic success. Unfortunately, Baltimore's students are disadvantaged by a vision-screening system that is so understaffed and underfunded that hundreds go without state-mandated eye tests and thousands more who fail vision-screening tests may not be getting necessary glasses. The need to test children's vision, especially at an early age, has been understood by the medical community for decades so that conditions such as strabismus (when the eyes are not straight) or amblyopia (lazy eye) can be corrected; otherwise, the conditions will become permanent. Along with state mandated vision-screening at an earlier school age, this reports offers six recommendations Baltimore can apply for strengthening their system. [Also included in this report is a salute to Allan M. Tibbels, founder of Sandtown Habitat for Humanity in West Baltimore, who died on June 3, 2010.]
Impact of Curricular Reforms on Educational Philosophy Courses in M.Ed Programmes
Author: Gafoor, K. Abdul
Date: 2014-08-22
Type: Speeches/Meeting Papers
Subjects: Curriculum Development,Masters Programs,Educational Philosophy,Education Courses,Content Analysis,Statistical Analysis,Qualitative Research,Course Objectives,Teacher Educator Education,Noncredit Courses,Course Descriptions,Foreign Countries

In the context of Vision of Teacher Education envisaged in National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education, this study probes &quot;Do M.Ed programmes provide for the prerequisites of educational philosophy for teacher educators?&quot; and &quot;whether the syllabi following credit and non credit pattern vary in their coverage of content of educational philosophy&quot;. The study employed both qualitative and quantitative analyses of the content of educational philosophy courses of M.Ed. programmes of 23 universities from across 14 states of India. The study categorized educational philosophy topics under 10 subareas--Meaning/scope; Metaphysics, Epistemology, Axiology; Orthodox philosophies in Indian culture; Heterodox philosophies in Indian culture; Other Indian philosophies; Traditional Western schools; Other Western schools; Indian thinkers; Western thinkers; and Script based study- and further grouped under broad areas namely Basic concepts; Philosophies in Indian culture; Western schools; Educational thinkers; and Scriptures based study. Course objectives on Educational philosophy of many universities are stated in terms of content only, and they avoid specifying the cognitive and affective level at which educational philosophy content is to be learnt. Findings reveal significant differences in content coverage of educational philosophy courses in credit based system and noncredit based system. Together with the deficiency in content coverage in several areas, many a curricula are ambiguous on the level at which the future teacher educators are supposed to imbibe the philosophical reflection. The study calls for more comprehensible and deeper ways of laying down educational philosophy courses with unambiguous concern on the intentions of philosophy in educational practice.
Concept Mapping--An Effective Mode to Impart Content Knowledge for Elementary Student Teachers
Author: Gafoor, K. Abdul
Date: 2013-03-02
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Concept Mapping,Misconceptions,Elementary School Science,Preservice Teacher Education,Preservice Teachers,Teacher Education Curriculum

Students hold many misconceptions in school science. Research reveals that teachers themselves, at times, are one source of misconceptions among students. A good number of such misconceptions, carried on to the next generation via school, are held by teachers; from their own school days and kept uncorrected even after their teacher education course. Teacher educators observe that student teachers show &quot;inadequate&quot; &quot;insufficient&quot; &quot;marked deficiency&quot; in the content knowledge. Despite this, there is no room in the present elementary teacher education curriculum for enhancing their content knowledge. The only way to impart content knowledge--pedagogic analysis--is a &quot;ritual&quot; in almost all institutions. Therefore, student teachers must get a chance for brushing up science concepts they ought to teach. Concept mapping is a strategy that can be used to impart content knowledge with sense within a limited span of time.