ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Bold Leadership, Real Reform: Best Practices in University Governance
Author: American Council of Trustees and Alumni
Date: 2015-01-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Best Practices,Governance,Educational Change,Higher Education,Universities,College Administration,Position Papers,Space Utilization,Program Implementation,Intercollegiate Cooperation,Community Colleges,School Restructuring,Organizational Change,Shared Resources and Services,Technological Advancement,Technology Integration,College Faculty,Productivity,College Presidents,Merit Pay,Graduation Rate,General Education,Degree Requirements,Grade Inflation,Transcripts (Written Records),Accountability

Colleges and universities across the country are seeing their bond ratings drop and their budgets shrink. Employers complain that college graduates are not prepared for the workplace, and many students find themselves saddled with considerable debt and no job to show for it. These are trying times for parents, for students, and for institutions. College or university trustees are tasked to pursue bold, innovative strategies for promoting academic excellence while holding down costs, the future of American higher education depends on it. Drawing on the experiences of universities across the country, this report details what works in higher education. Through an analysis of 12 best practices, aimed at reducing the cost of a degree while increasing the quality of student learning, the success stories related here provide a useful model for achieving more with less.
English for Specific Purposes: The State of the Art (An Online Interview with Ann M. Johns)
Author: Johns, Ann M.
Date: 2015-04-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: English for Special Purposes,Interviews,Second Language Instruction,Second Language Learning,Student Needs,Discourse Analysis,Needs Assessment,Role,Language Usage,Course Content,Language Styles,Teaching Methods

This forum paper is based on a friendly and informative interview conducted with Professor Ann M. Johns. In providing answers to the interview questions, Professor Johns suggests that all good teaching is ESP, and also distinguishes between EOP and ESP in that the former entails much more &quot;just in time&quot; learning while the latter may be directed more at &quot;just in case.&quot; She further adds &quot;context&quot; as the sixth enduring conception to the list of the five concepts which, according to Swales (1990), underlie ESP. She further suggests that (a) Register Analysis, (b) Rhetorical Discourse Analysis, (c) Target Language Use Situation Analysis, and (d) Genre Analysis have had a major role in the development of ESP. As for CBI or CLIL, she suggests that there is much more to ESP than content, and emphasizes that ESP can account for the changing needs of learners in the twenty-first century by employing effective on-going needs assessment and target situation analysis. Towards the end of the interview, she presents her views on the future direction of ESP by suggesting that more serious research into target situations is needed, and invites ESP specialists to be more open, flexible, and sensitive to context.
Genre Analysis: The State of the Art (An Online Interview with Vijay Kumar Bhatia)
Author: Bhatia, Vijay Kumar
Date: 2015-04-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Literary Genres,Discourse Analysis,Academic Discourse,English for Special Purposes,Applied Linguistics,Pragmatics,Linguistic Theory,Foreign Countries

In this interview, Vijay Bhatia freely reflects on his personal experiences, perceptions, and views about the development of Genre Analysis in the early eighties towards Critical Genre Analysis today. He offers his impressions about how professionals construct, interpret, use and often exploit generic resources in their everyday practice to meet their professional objectives in specific contexts. Starting from the early conceptualization of Genre in the eighties in the United Kingdom, he points out how it was essentially inspired by the everyday concerns about the teaching and learning of English for Specific Purposes, and how it continued to gain popularity and is considered one of the most popular frameworks for ESP applications in the present-day context. However, he points out, it is not enough to analyze and describe just the specialist discourses; it is also equally important to understand how such discourses are employed in professional practice to meet specific requirements of a particular profession. Hence the need to develop traditional Genre Analytical framework further towards what he calls Critical Genre Analysis to demystify interdiscursive performance in specific academic and professional settings.
WWC Review of the Report &quot;Transfer Incentives for High-Performing Teachers: Final Results from a Multisite Randomized Experiment.&quot; What Works Clearinghouse Single Study Review
Author: What Works Clearinghouse (ED)
Date: 2015-03-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Reading Achievement,Mathematics Achievement,Teacher Competencies,Low Achievement,Incentives,Teacher Effectiveness,School Districts,Teacher Transfer,Comparative Analysis,Experimental Groups,Control Groups,Elementary School Students,Elementary School Teachers,Middle School Students,Middle School Teachers,Scores,Program Effectiveness,Standardized Tests,Intervention,Teamwork,Principals,Teacher Placement,At Risk Students

For the 2013 study, &quot;Transfer Incentives for High-Performing Teachers: Final Results from a Multisite Randomized Experiment,&quot; researchers examined the impact of the Talent Transfer Initiative (TTI) on students' reading and mathematics achievement in 10 school districts. The TTI enabled principals of low-performing schools to provide bonuses to high-performing teachers when they transferred to and stayed in the low-performing schools. Researchers randomly assigned teacher teams to the TTI program or to a comparison group over two years. They found that elementary students from TTI teams scored higher on state-specific mathematics and reading standardized tests at the end of program Year 2 than those from comparison teams. There were no impacts in test scores at the end of the program Year 1 for the elementary and middle school samples and no impacts at the end of the program Year 2 for the middle school samples. A subset of the analyses has low attrition and meets WWC group design standards without reservations. The following are appended: (1) Study Details; (2) Outcome Measures for Each Domain; and (3) Study Findings for Each Domain. [The following study is the focus of this Single Study Review: Glazerman, S., Protik, A., Teh, B., Bruch, J., &amp; Max, J. (2013). &quot;Transfer incentives for high-performing teachers: Final results from a multisite randomized experiment&quot; (NCEE 2014-4003). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED544269.pdf. For the full report, see ED544269.]
Online Course Use in New York High Schools: Results from a Survey in the Greater Capital Region. REL 2015-075
Author: Clements, Margaret
Date: 2015-03-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Online Courses,Educational Technology,Surveys,Barriers,High Schools,Public Schools,Technology Uses in Education,Educational Quality,Integrity,Teacher Student Relationship,Interaction,Educational Finance,Access to Computers,Repetition,Required Courses,Teaching Methods,Educational Objectives,State Regulation,Decision Making,Graduation Requirements,Advanced Placement,Dual Enrollment,Elective Courses,Access to Education,Teacher Qualifications,State Policy,Rural Schools,Urban Schools,Suburban Schools

As in most states, New York does not currently have a state-level protocol for collecting data about schools' objectives or methods for offering online courses. The goals of the study conducted by the Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast and Islands' Northeast Rural Districts Research Alliance (NRDRA) were (1) to create a survey tool capable of collecting information about how and why schools in New York are using online learning, as well as the factors that hinder the use of online courses; and (2) to provide information about how and why high schools in the Greater Capital Region of the state used online courses for their students in 2012/13. NRDRA members from the Capital Area School Development Association (CASDA) administered the survey to their 99 member public high schools at the start of the 2013/14 school year. Researchers analyzed survey data collected from 59 responding schools to produce estimates of online course use in CASDA schools. Results indicate that 59 percent of the responding schools used at least one online course for their students during the 2012/13 school year, with an average of six percent of the student population across these schools enrolling in an online course. The primary uses of online courses were to provide students with opportunities to recover credit and complete core courses required for a high school diploma. Respondent high schools identified three concerns related to their students' educational experiences in online courses: course quality, the academic integrity of online learning, and the lack of student and teacher face-to-face interaction. For responding schools that did not use online courses, the most frequently cited reasons for not using online courses were concerns about students' educational experiences in online courses and limited school resources, including funding and access to technology. Further research is needed to examine the academic outcomes of students enrolled in online courses. Three appendices are included: (1) Online course use survey; (2) Data and methodology; and (3) Supplemental statistical tables. [This report was written in collaboration with the Northeast Rural Districts Research Alliance. For a summary of this research, see ED555634.]
Online Course Use in New York High Schools: Results from a Survey in the Greater Capital Region. REL 2015-074. Stated Briefly
Author: Clements, Margaret
Date: 2015-03-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Online Courses,Educational Technology,Surveys,Barriers,High Schools,Public Schools,Technology Uses in Education,Educational Quality,Integrity,Teacher Student Relationship,Interaction,Educational Finance,Access to Computers,Repetition,Required Courses,Teaching Methods,Educational Objectives,State Regulation,Decision Making,Graduation Requirements,Advanced Placement,Dual Enrollment,Elective Courses,Access to Education,Teacher Qualifications,State Policy,Rural Schools,Urban Schools,Suburban Schools

This &quot;Stated Briefly&quot; report is a companion piece that summarizes the results of another report of the same name. The goal of the study conducted by the Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast and Islands' Northeast Rural Districts Research Alliance (NRDRA) was to provide information about how and why high schools in the Greater Capital Region of the state used online courses for their students in 2012/13. Researchers analyzed survey data collected from 59 responding schools to produce estimates of online course use. Results indicate that 59 percent of respondent high schools in the New York Greater Capital Region enrolled students in online courses in the 2012/13 school year. Schools offered online courses primarily to provide students with opportunities for credit recovery. School officials expressed concern about course quality and academic integrity. [This brief was written in collaboration with the Northeast Rural Districts Research Alliance. For the full report, see ED555633.]
Economic Engagement Framework: Economic Impact Guidelines
Author: Ambargis, Zoë
Date: 2014-12-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Public Colleges,Land Grant Universities,Economic Development,Economic Impact,Outcome Measures,Input Output Analysis,Models,Guidelines

The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities' (APLU's) Commission on Innovation, Competitiveness, and Economic Prosperity (CICEP) views university contributions to the economy across a spectrum of activity--from educating students and creating the talent necessary for the 21st century workforce to developing innovation ecosystems and entrepreneurship, to enhancing social, cultural and community development. APLU's member institutions are increasingly being asked to demonstrate their economic value and relevance. CICEP has been working for the last number of years on developing several tools in an attempt to help universities focus efforts not only on telling their economic engagement story well, but also growing, improving, and advancing their economic engagement enterprise and thereby accelerating economic development in their regions, nationally, and globally. The framework has at its core four simple ideas: (1) institutions should KNOW what they're doing well and what they need to improve with regard to economic engagement; (2) institutions should be able to MEASURE the extent to which they are engaged; (3) institutions should be able to TELL the story of their contributions to economic development, and (4) institutions must ENGAGE with external stakeholders throughout the processes of knowing, measuring, and telling in order for their contributions to have meaningful impact. The suite of tools in the CICEP Economic Engagement framework helps each of these aspects--Know, Measure, Tell, and Engage. The Economic Impact Guidelines make up one part of the set of tools. The Guidelines offer ideas about the best approach to assessing the economic impact of universities, with an emphasis on the use of input-output models, and can be employed in conjunction with a discussion on broader impacts. All of CICEP's tools help universities understand the institution's accomplishments in economic engagement, identify areas for improvement, and communicate it effectively with various stakeholders.
Basic Scientific and Engineering Research at U.S. Universities. AAU Data &amp; Policy Brief. No. 1
Author: Association of American Universities
Date: 2015-02-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Scientific Research,Engineering,Financial Support,College Role,Universities,Government School Relationship,Federal Aid,Research and Development

&quot;Discovery,&quot; wrote William Press in a 2013 article in &quot;Science,&quot; &quot;leads to technology and invention, which lead to new products, jobs, and industries.&quot; Basic, curiosity-driven research continually expands the boundaries of knowledge across fields, providing insights that enrich lives. Such research helps drive the U.S. economy, enhances national security, and improves human health and wellbeing. Basic research conducted at universities also provides training for the nation's scientific and engineering workforce in business, manufacturing, government, and academia. This brief looks at the funding and performance of basic research in the United States, which in 2012 totaled nearly $75 billion, with an emphasis on the role of universities. The data illustrate the importance of the long-standing partnership between universities and the federal government for the nation's basic research enterprise.
The Effects of Smartphone Use on Organic Chemical Compound Learning
Author: Zan, Nuray
Date: 2015-02-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Telecommunications,Handheld Devices,Organic Chemistry,Science Instruction,Student Evaluation,Student Attitudes,Teaching Methods,Multimedia Instruction,Grade 9,High School Students,Questionnaires,Multivariate Analysis,Tests,Predictor Variables,Comparative Analysis

As a result of rapid technological advances, smartphones have recently enjoyed widespread use. The basic purpose of this study is to examine the effects of smartphones when they are used as educational tools in learning environments. To assess the effects of smartphone use on learning, this study uses smartphones as educational tools in a chemistry course that focuses on naming organic chemical compounds. Text and multimedia messages that are sent to students' smartphones include the names, formulas, pronunciations, and usage areas of compounds, along with questions related to these compounds. These messages are supported with audio-visual content to make the information more permanent. In the second stage of the study, questions are sent via text message to evaluate the students' levels of understanding in the field of naming and writing compounds. In addition to this evaluation, students' attitudes about this method have been researched. As a result of evaluating the gathered data, this study has made a statistically significant contribution to the literature on students' learning of chemical compounds. Students showed positive behaviours when using smartphones as educational tools and said that learning with smartphones was easier than with other learning methods.
Still Images for Written English Communication (Part 3). Students' Photographs as a Stimulus for Interaction and Essay Production
Author: Wood, David John
Date: 2015-03-01
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: English (Second Language),Writing (Composition),College Students,Foreign Students,Photography,Essays,Language Proficiency,Teaching Methods,Progress Monitoring,Student Improvement,Language Fluency,Visual Aids,Writing Instruction,Instructional Effectiveness,Student Motivation,Second Language Instruction,Active Learning,Difficulty Level,Questionnaires,Course Evaluation,Foreign Countries

Despite the stream of directives about improving students' English communicative ability from the Japanese Education Ministry since 2003 [1-4] significant development has remained elusive. One obstacle to communication (as an individual and a cooperative faculty) is the inflexible &quot;one-size-fits-all&quot; philosophy of commercial textbooks (and thus the pedagogy they entail) which fail to meet students' unique inter-expressive objectives. Accordingly, we examine whether a non-text approach typified by &quot;Dogme&quot; [5] principles can enhance EFL students' ability to communicate in English by asking if Japanese college students' proficiency develops during their spoken and written production when using their own photos, as opposed to the traditional textbook-teaching styles in all their other classes. The 60 students whose production was analyzed had close ability levels in their pre-course language proficiency tests, increasing the validity of the study to monitor development. This study was indicated by the success of the approach in both motivating students and improving their English communication ability over several years of its application, firstly with sophomores studying conversation, and subsequently with first year students learning reading and writing. Many English department students taught by a wide range of experienced text-dependent teachers are disinclined to attend optional conversation classes, and see no development according to anonymous and often frank course-end evaluations. They derive insufficient appeal and motivation to communicate in English using textbooks. The data in this latest consideration was collected over six months starting in early 2014 from two classes' randomly selected language production samples. We analyze data from both classes to assess development by comparing fluency, accuracy and complexity changes in recordings and photo essay interaction questions. Feedback is given in the appendix. [For Part 1, see ED554061 and for Part 2, see ED554583.]
Tapped Out
Author: González-Rivera, Christian
Date: 2014-12-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Community Colleges,Two Year College Students,Student Financial Aid,Part Time Students,Eligibility,State Aid,State Programs,Access to Education,Budgeting,Retrenchment

New York's community colleges have a key role to play in elevating poor and working poor New Yorkers into the ranks of the middle class. The economy is producing few decent-paying jobs for people with only a high school diploma, and community colleges offer the most accessible path for people to obtain a post-secondary credential. However, tens of thousands of New Yorkers who can only afford to enroll in these institutions on a part-time basis are struggling to remain in school long enough to earn a credential-and one of the biggest reasons is the state's outdated financial aid system, which effectively bars part-timers from benefiting from the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP). The TAP program is comparatively generous in other ways, but New York is one of only 14 states to sharply limit access to part-time students. The state's eligibility rules require that students be enrolled full-time for two consecutive semesters before they can enroll part-time and still qualify for TAP. Once they meet these requirements, students are only eligible for a total of six semesters of schooling. These restrictions are a big reason why so few part-time students who enroll in community colleges actually earn a degree or professional certification. Nationally, research has found that student debt and lack of access to financial aid are the key problems associated with low completion rates. Recommended solutions include the following: (1) Eliminate the requirement that students attend full-time for two consecutive semesters before receiving Part-Time TAP (PTAP) and pro-rate awards to the number of credits attempted; (2) Start a pilot program extending TAP to a select group of part-time students and evaluate the results; (3) Fold TAP, PTAP, and APTS into one centralized New York State financial aid system with eligibility based solely on income; (4) Extend the TAP eligibility window to ensure students are supported throughout their college careers; and (5) Make TAP available in the summer. [Additional research support was provided by Barbara Wijering-van Wijk and Esther Kim.]