ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Vouchers, Public School Response, and the Role of Incentives. Staff Report No. 306
Author: Chakrabarti, Rajashri
Date: 2010-11-00
Type: Numerical/Quantitative Data
Subjects: Public Schools,Educational Change,Educational Vouchers,Incentives,Accountability,Educational Quality,Social Bias,Academic Achievement,Sanctions,Reading Achievement,Mathematics Achievement,Writing Achievement,Private Schools,Racial Differences,Socioeconomic Status,Hispanic American Students,Asian American Students,White Students,American Indians,African American Students

This paper analyzes the incentives and responses of public schools in the context of an educational reform. The literature on the effect of voucher programs on public schools typically focuses on student and mean school scores. This paper tries to go inside the black box to investigate some of the ways in which schools facing the Florida voucher program behaved. The program embedded vouchers in an accountability regime. Schools getting an &quot;F&quot; grade for the first time were exposed to the threat of vouchers, but did not face vouchers unless and until they got a second &quot;F&quot; within the next three years. In addition, &quot;F,&quot; being the lowest grade, exposed the threatened schools to stigma. Exploiting the institutional details of this program, I analyze the incentives built into the system and investigate the behavior of the threatened public schools facing these incentives. There is strong evidence that they did respond to incentives. Using highly disaggregated school-level data, a difference-in-differences estimation strategy, and a regression discontinuity analysis, I find that the threatened schools tended to focus more on students below the minimum criteria cutoffs rather than reading and math. These results are robust to controlling for differential preprogram trends, changes in demographic compositions, mean reversion, and sorting. The findings have important policy implications. (Contains 11 tables, 9 figures and 21 footnotes.)
Degrees for What Jobs? Raising Expectations for Universities and Colleges in a Global Economy
Author: Sparks, Erin
Date: 2011-03-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Economic Progress,Higher Education,Labor Market,Economic Development,Alignment (Education),Role of Education,Education Work Relationship,Information Utilization,Partnerships in Education,Economic Impact,Funding Formulas,Educational Policy,Public Policy,State Action,Labor Force Development,Best Practices,Change Strategies,Organizational Objectives

Recognizing that higher education, including community colleges, four-year colleges, and research universities, cannot help drive economic growth in their states unless students' academic success is linked to the needs of the marketplace, governors and state policymakers are beginning to move beyond their focus on getting more students to get &quot;degrees&quot; to asking: &quot;Degrees for what jobs?&quot; Governors and state policymakers in Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, and Washington have undertaken bold, comprehensive strategies to align postsecondary education with the state's economic goals. In the context of their overall strategies, discussed in this report, these pioneering states have taken the following steps to strengthen universities and colleges as agents of workforce preparation and sources of more opportunity, more growth, and more competitive advantage: (1) Set clear expectations for higher education's role in economic development; (2) Emphasize rigorous use of labor market data and other sources to define goals and priorities; (3) Encourage employers' input in higher education; (4) Require public higher education institutions to collect and publicly report impacts; and (5) Emphasize performance as an essential factor in funding. (Contains 8 tables, 5 figures, and 61 endnotes.)
State Strategies for Fixing Failing Schools and Districts. Issue Brief
Author: Wakelyn, David
Date: 2011-03-24
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Educational Change,Grants,Change Strategies,Educational Strategies,Best Practices,Educational Improvement,Low Achievement,Underachievement,Improvement Programs,Consultation Programs,Educational Policy,Educational Planning,Effective Schools Research,State Action

At least 5,000 public schools have failed to meet their academic achievement targets for at least five consecutive years. The underlying causes of such failure are usually a combination of weak leadership, inadequate skill levels among teachers, and insufficient high-quality teaching materials. In 2009, the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) awarded competitive grants to four states to participate in the State Strategies to Improve Chronically Low-Performing Schools project. The project provided Colorado, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Mississippi with grant funds and consulting services to develop policies and plans that create the conditions to turn around chronically low-performing schools and districts. It yielded valuable lessons and suggested strategies that states and territories can use to fix failing schools and districts. States can use the lessons learned from the NGA Center's project, along with the new federal funding, to step up their efforts to fix failing schools and districts in these ways: (1) Build state capacity to support the turnaround of failing schools and districts; (2) Engage external partners to manage school and district turnarounds; (3) Set ambitious but realistic goals for school improvement that incorporate multiple measures; (4) Develop a human capital strategy to improve the quality of leadership and teaching; and (5) Increase state authority to intervene in failing schools and districts, if other approaches prove insufficient. (Contains 1 chart and 38 notes.)
Maximizing the Impact of State Early Childhood Home Visitation Programs. Issue Brief
Author: National Governors Association, Center for Best Practices
Date: 2011-03-08
Type: Guides - Non-Classroom
Subjects: State Programs,Early Childhood Education,Home Visits,Young Children,Child Care,Early Intervention,At Risk Persons,Family Programs,Child Abuse,Child Neglect,School Readiness,Academic Achievement,Child Health,Parenting Skills,Child Rearing,Prevention,Delinquency,Financial Support,Federal Aid,Program Effectiveness,Agency Cooperation,Accountability,State Government,Federal Government

Early childhood is a critical time for cognitive, social, and behavioral development. Many states have invested in comprehensive early childhood care and education systems that offer a wide range of supports and services to families from the prenatal period through school entry. Home visiting programs are an important component of state early childhood systems. In a typical home visiting program, trained professionals provide regular, voluntary home visits to at-risk expectant and new parents and offer guidance, risk assessment, and referrals to other services offered in the community. As states continue to redesign and streamline state programs to make them more effective, the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) released this paper to offer states suggestions on how to better coordinate and integrate home visitation programs to improve early childhood initiatives. (Contains 33 endnotes.)
The Learning Trip: Using the Museum Field Trip Experience as a Teaching Resource to Enhance Curriculum and Student Engagement
Author: Tuffy, Jennifer
Date: 2011-05-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Field Trips,Creative Teaching,Lesson Plans,Museums,Learning Experience,Educational Resources,Teaching Methods,Student Motivation,Student Participation,Planning,Interaction,Exhibits,History,Foreign Countries

Teachers are forced to use state-adopted texts, approved materials and methods in order to facilitate learning. The creativity of designing a lesson plan that meets the needs of each student, while fostering the imagination and creativity, can be all but lost when constrained by such parameters. So what can teachers do to enhance the learning process for students? Many teachers are turning towards alternative sources of information to compliment their lesson plans. One such source that can provide a wealth of knowledge and unlimited access to cultures, ideas, history and knowledge from all over the world are museums. Many of the world's most popular and renowned museums have begun to enhance their research divisions to include areas that assist educators in complimenting their lesson planning and curriculum. The purpose of this study is to identify the various ways museum resources can enhance curriculum and lesson plans for teachers, and review the impact of such resources on student engagement and learning. Four key elements have been identified that need to be in place in order to have a successful and meaningful fieldtrip experience at a museum. These four elements are as follows: pre-planning, interaction, task-oriented activities and follow-up. This study outlines how to incorporate these four elements and outline the specific ideas behind what makes each step successful in this unique learning experience.
Driving Objectives and High-level Requirements for KP-Lab Technologies
Author: Lakkala, Minna
Date: 2008-09-30
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Programming,Computer System Design,Educational Technology,Computer Software,Instructional Design,Computer Assisted Instruction,Internet,Teleconferencing,Teaching Methods,Program Descriptions,Instructional Development,Design Requirements,Usability,Objectives,Cooperation,Educational Research,Data Collection,Workplace Learning,Teacher Education,Higher Education,Knowledge Management

One of the central goals of the KP-Lab project is to co-design pedagogical methods and technologies for knowledge creation and practice transformation in an integrative and reciprocal manner. In order to facilitate this process user tasks, driving objectives and high-level requirements have been introduced as conceptual tools to mediate between technological design empirical research as well as theory development. The user tasks describe the generic activities users should be able to perform interactively with KP-Lab technology, based on the perspective of trialogical learning. The driving objectives are derived from the KP-Lab design principles of trialogical learning, the results obtained from empirical investigations that were performed in the pedagogical work packages as well as the reviews and analyses of available technologies and their potentials carried out by technical partners. In short, the driving objectives provide overall scope and direction for the technology development based on KP-Lab theory and practice. They encapsulate the high-level requirements which provide more detailed descriptions of technology support for supporting knowledge creation and practice transformation. This deliverable provides an updated overview of driving objectives and high-level requirements for guiding the technological design and implementation of the KP-Lab system. The document highlights also particularly the added value of semantic services from a user's point of view as well as the use of respective applications in different research cases. This document supersedes the current list of driving objectives and high-level requirements as documented in DoW3.1 (KP-Lab, 2008b). The document is focused on the description of user tasks, driving objectives and high-level requirements. An in depth discussion of the objectives and requirements from a theoretical, pedagogical and technological perspective is beyond the scope of this document. For respective accounts the reader is referred to D3.3 (KP-lab, 2008c), the reports on empirical studies carried out by WP8-10 as well as the technical specifications provided by WP4-6. (Contains 24 tables, 2 figures, and 3 footnotes.
Stakeholders Analysis
Author: Delrio, Claudio
Date: 2008-03-04
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Evaluation Methods,Stakeholders,Educational Policy,Self Evaluation (Groups),Questionnaires,Pilot Projects,Case Studies,Programming,Computer System Design,Educational Technology,Computer Software,Instructional Design,Internet,Computer Mediated Communication,Teaching Methods,Program Descriptions,Instructional Development,Design Requirements,Cooperation,Educational Research,Workplace Learning,Knowledge Management,Teacher Education,Higher Education,Networks,Computer Uses in Education

The aim of this report is, first of all, to present the KP-Lab approach toward stakeholders in the wider framework of European policies. Secondly, the KP-Lab definition of stakeholders and the strategy to address different stakeholders needs, concerns and expectations is presented in the following paragraphs. The second chapter presents concrete examples of stakeholders' involvement in the KP-Lab project. The third chapter proposes a tool for self-assessing stakeholders' awareness to be used by KP-Lab project partners and any researcher interested in improving its consideration of stakeholders' needs, concerns and expectations. Finally, some conclusions and recommendations are presented. Appended are: (1) Tools to Be Co-Developed with Users; and (2) KP-Lab On-Going Pilots Activities. (Contains 14 footnotes and 1 figure.)
Training Plan (M29 Revision)
Date: 2008-06-26
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Training Methods,Educational Objectives,Educational Planning,Programming,Computer System Design,Educational Technology,Computer Software,Instructional Design,Computer Assisted Instruction,Internet,Teaching Methods,Program Descriptions,Instructional Development,Design Requirements,Usability,Objectives,Cooperation,Workplace Learning,Knowledge Management,Teacher Education,Higher Education,Networks

The objectives of training activities as stated in the DoW are: 1. to organize training within the project for the participants to learn to use the necessary tools; 2. to support training activities of the partners when they deliver and take in use the tools and practices during extended pilots. The approach with regards to the first point is that partners may need training not only for the tools, but also to better understand the methodologies and theories behind KP-lab. Basically the training within the project can span most aspects needed to secure good results. The second point also gives room for training material that can be used outside and after the project, if deemed suitable. A first deliverable from WP12 was this training plan. It is updated to describe the current state of the training planning. (Contains 1 figure.)
Cooperative Real-Time Communication and Multimedia Management -- Release 1
Author: Batatia, Hadj
Date: 2007-12-17
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Computer Software,Consortia,Synchronous Communication,Multimedia Materials,Usability,Handheld Devices,Standards,Technical Support,Programming,Computer System Design,Educational Technology,Instructional Design,Internet,Teleconferencing,Computer Mediated Communication,Computer Uses in Education,Teaching Methods,Program Descriptions,Instructional Development,Design Requirements,Workplace Learning,Knowledge Management,Teacher Education,Higher Education,Networks

This document gives an overview of current needs expressed so far in the project for multimedia management and real-time communication services between groups of learners/workers and examine the kind of support that a standard-based technical solution &quot;off-the-shelf&quot; can help in solving main technical issues and in focusing on developments of tools and applications. The document includes in its annexes a state-of-the-art review of related technologies and a detailed examination of the platform that Radvision, as KP-Lab consortium partner, can bring to the project. The document contemplates in details the different needs in various KP-Lab cases and pedagogical scenarios identified so far. It then addresses the question of openness, scalability, customisation and usability of existing tools and platforms. The advantages of the IVP platform and of related Radvision expertise and support within the Consortium are considered as key factors for launching trials with the IVP platform, which is considered as a facilitating solution for the development of our KP-Lab specific tools and services. A short-term work plan is summarized at the end of the document. As planned in the Description of Work M13-M30, the second release of this document (labelled D4.3.2) will detail and reflect on the proof-of-concepts developed so far, give recommendations and guidelines for further developments and tests. (Contains 3 footnotes.)
Synthetic Report of Research and Development of Professional Knowledge Practices
Author: Toiviainen, Hanna
Date: 2006-07-31
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Research and Development,Computer Mediated Communication,Research Methodology,Teaching Methods,Professional Development,Synthesis,Programming,Computer System Design,Educational Technology,Computer Software,Instructional Design,Computer Assisted Instruction,Internet,Program Descriptions,Instructional Development,Design Requirements,Usability,Cooperation,Educational Research,Workplace Learning,Knowledge Management,Teacher Education,Higher Education,Networks,Case Studies

This deliverable has been produced in the context of the Knowledge-Practice Laboratory (KP-Lab) project, which is aimed at facilitating innovative practices of working with knowledge in higher education, teacher training, and professional networks. This deliverable is a synopsis of the first experiences encountered during the first 6 months of the work in WP10. WP10 focused on tools and practices where elicitation, capturing and creating knowledge in different representational modes aims to making them available for problem solving and collaborative knowledge advancement in professional networks. During the first 6 months the emphasis of work has been on the state-of-the-art research, organizing and negotiating the empirical cases with professional organizations and on the coevolutionary process of defining the requirements of KP-Lab tools and practices. State-of-the-art research has concentrated on how the knowledge practices in professional networks have been approached in the literature, what are the major findings, i.e., what themes and perspectives are promising, problematic or absent. In WP 10 we have started to refine the research approaches as there were no ready made approaches available to us. Drawing on previous experiences we will continue to elaborate and develop Change Laboratory[R] approach and Participatory Change Process approach. To do so, we have negotiated access to and secured collaboration with several empirical partners. The cases allow for exploring current tools and practices--embrace complexity, and engage domain experts--from health care, software company, global forest industry consulting. Lastly, our work has led to some initial requirements of the KP-Lab tools and practices and support for capturing, eliciting, reusing and suggesting new tools and practices. (Contains 1 figure.) [Abstract modified to meet ERIC guidelines.]
Report on Outcomes of Empirical Studies
Author: Morch, Anders
Date: 2009-03-16
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Higher Education,Program Evaluation,Educational Change,Industry,School Business Relationship,Transfer of Training,Case Studies,Problem Solving,Educational Research,Training Methods,Research and Development,Web Based Instruction,Computer Mediated Communication,Computer System Design,Educational Technology,Computer Software,Instructional Design,Computer Assisted Instruction,Internet,Teaching Methods,Program Descriptions,Instructional Development,Design Requirements,Workplace Learning,Knowledge Management,Teacher Education,Networks

This deliverable has been produced in the context of the Knowledge-Practice Laboratory (KP-Lab) project. KP-Lab focuses on innovative practices of working with knowledge in higher education, teacher training, and workplaces. Participants of WP10 are University of Helsinki,  University of Oslo and Poyry Forest Industry representing both researchers and practitioners. WP10 explores knowledge practices in workplaces to understand more of the ways professionals create, use, communicate, and embed knowledge in their work. Such understandings will be made available for subsequent problem-solving in individual and  collaborative knowledge advancement. In a longer term perspective this allows to explore professionals' knowledge creation and production processes during boundary crossing between workplaces, from workplaces to education, and from higher education to workplaces.  In this deliverable we report empirical findings from the case studies that are currently active in the portfolio of cases. We draw attention to aspects of &quot;artefact production,&quot; &quot;knowledge creation&quot; and &quot;practice transformation.&quot; In our studies knowledge-creation and transformation of practice rests in the interplay of tools, activities and actors. In the cases reported here, the tools provide either a) arena for productive interactions and knowledge creation, b) resources for knowledge creation and practice transformation or c) means for data collection and analytic work. The activities point to many examples where new structures of participation in knowledge work are exemplified as boundary crossing or horizontal movements as professional contribute their expertise to solve open-ended problems. The findings in the cases studies reported here will also be a resource in the continuation of work as more integrated studies; leading and satellite studies with extended pilots. In addition, the outcomes of the studies can feed into refinement of process-sensitive methodologies, exploitation and refinement of the KP-Lab Reference Model and elaboration of pedagogical models for open-ended, object-oriented inquiry as explained in pedagogical R&amp;D in the revised research plan. (Individual sections contain references, figures, and footnotes.)