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Miami Dade, which has more than 90,000 students, for example, decided to require those who place into developmental courses to take a "success" course that teaches basic study and time-management skills. That requirement helped to double graduation rates for the college's minority students. Valencia, seeing data that students who added classes late had poor completion rates, instituted a policy barring students from registering for classes that have already met. To maintain some flexi­bility, the college introduced "flex start" sections, which begin a month into the semester. Another excerpt: Faculty-Led Efforts Faculty buy-in is another crucial component to colleges' meeting their completion goals. Finalists for the Aspen Prize all had faculty members strongly dedicated to teaching-and conducting research on teaching methods. "What we heard a lot from faculty was, 'How can I find better ways to deliver instruction to my students?'" Mr. Wyner says. As part of the tenure process at Valencia, full-time faculty develop three-year "action research projects" on teaching techniques that involve training courses, advisers, and peer-review panels. The faculty members test teaching strategies, assessing students' performance against that of control groups. Ideas that work find a place in the classroom. In one project, a professor tried giving individual lab assignments to developmental-reading students, rather than a blanket assignment for all students. The new method worked better, the professor determined, and all sections of that course on Valencia's East Campus now use that model of instruction. Valencia is not the only college where faculty drive the innovation. At Miami Dade, faculty members banded together to improve students' pass rates in math, choosing and testing several new teaching methods. Some showed promise, such as testing algebra students more often on smaller amounts of material, a practice that continued.

by Ron Tanner, November 6, 2011 This article echoes some of what Geoff ? said several years ago. When I began teaching a course called "Writing for the Web," three years ago, I pictured myself scrambling to keep up with my plugged-in, tech-savvy students. I was sure I was in over my head. So I was stunned to discover that most of the 20-year-olds I meet know very little about the Internet, and even less about how to communicate effectively online. The media present young people as the audacious pilots of a technological juggernaut. Think Napster, Twitter, Facebook. Given that the average 18-year-old spends hours each day immersed in electronic media, we oldsters tend to assume that every other teenager is the next Mark Zuckerberg. Aren't kids crazy about downloading music, swapping files, sharing links, texting, and playing video games? But video games do not create savvy users of the Internet. Video games predate the Internet and have little to do with online culture. When games are played online, the computer is no longer an open portal to the world. It is an insular system, related only to other gaming machines, like Nintendo and Xbox. The only communication that games afford is within the closed world of the game itself-who is on my team? At their worst, games divert children from other, more enriching experiences. The Internet's chief similarity to video games is that both siphon off audiences from television, which will soon reside exclusively on the Internet. As a delivery system for television, film, and games, the Internet has proved itself a premier source of entertainment. And that's all that most young people know about it. Why wouldn't we educate students in sophisticated uses of the Internet, which is commanding an increasing amount of the world's time and attention? I'm not talking about a course on "How to Understand the Internet" or an introduction to searching for legitimate research-paper sources online (although that is useful, obviously

OECD works with governments to provide a forum for exchange and helps to understand what drives economic, social and environmental change.

A DC-based organization that helps students get on the road to college. Site offers tips and links to resources for students in 6th grade through 12th, including guidance on finding scholarships.

A San Francisco-based college access program that helps students finish high school and become the first in their families to graduate from college. The program takes a long term, individualized approach, making a 10 year commitment to each student, starting the summer after sixth grade through college graduation. The program serves more than 200 San Franciso-based students each year.

How can all staff help students become better writers? (It may take a while to load but well worth the wait)

Published in Spectrum > Mobile Learning, Libraries, And Technologies, March 12, 2009. "MLE-Moodle is an out-of-the-box mobile Learning (mLearning) system, designed for mobile phones." With MCNC in particular, we've discussed how it might be helpful to be able to engage students/faculty/administrators in Polilogue via mobile phone in addition to computer.

Tagline: Love and Logic (c) provides simple and easy to use techniques to help parents have more fun and less stress while raising responsible kids of all ages. There is a section of the site devoted to classroom solutions for educators.

Sharon Hall recommends, saying "I have personal experience utilizing the concepts with very difficult students over the past 9 years."

Exercises for helping a group use past experience to identify how they can and should work together by Sara Carney

Interesting approach by PARCC on through-course assessments for K-12 students with particular significance for HS students as they assess how college ready they are, how they are growing content and skills to analyze, understand the content and apply, and how through-course assessments drive interventions, classroom practice, and support needed for teachers to understand CCSS and help their students to achieve them. Really like logic model on p 17. How does this, should this, could this affect MCNC's epi modeling? I-Lab practicum?

Students at risk of dropping out have shown great capacity. See a news report about Challenge Early College High School and how it has helped to retain students at risk of dropping out.

excerpt on teaching critical thinking "What are the right kinds of questions to ask? In figuring out what questions to ask, it's really helpful to look at Bloom's Taxonomy. Bloom's begins with a knowledge-based question such as, "Who was the first president of the United States?" To answer that question simply requires knowledge. That's just a first step. Next you want them to be able to evaluate. So I push teachers to look at the levels of Bloom's Taxonomy that involve the analysis and evaluation type of questions. That's when you're pushing kids' thinking. For instance, if you ask, "To what extent was George Washington successful as the first president of the United States?" that's a much higher-level question. It requires a student to evaluate, to create a set of criteria for what makes someone a great president, to possess knowledge about George Washington, and to evaluate his performance against that set of criteria. I suggest that teachers really think about questions that hit four specific criteria. Questions should be open-ended, with no right or wrong answer, which prompts exploration in different directions require synthesis of information, an understanding of how pieces fit together be "alive in their disciplines," which means perpetually arguable, with themes that will recur throughout a student's lifetime and always be relevant be age-appropriate

great blog by Australian teacher on how and why they are helping their students to build digital literacy skills through eportfolios and blogging

short video (<2 minutes) on how knowledge is created in a MOOC. How does the MOOC approach resemble/depart from existing IL-SLI design? How should it affect what we try to do this year in IL-SLI for IL teachers? For IL students? Does the MOOC label help or hurt explaining IL-SLI intent and set-up?

Part of the Georgia Dept. of Education, Georgia Standards.org "is a free, public website providing information and resources necessary to help meet the educational needs of students. "

This is a member organization (whole districts join) that works to help "America's urban public schools to educate the nation's most diverse student body to the highest academic standards and prepare them to contribute to our democracy and the global community."

With the tagline "people learning math together" and a claim to be "... the leading online resource for improving math learning, teaching, and communication since 1992." The math forum provides resources, math help, and a "puzzles & problems" tab.

The foundation supports nonprofits and educational institutions that help support Houston, in the areas of arts & culture, education, environment, health and human services.

Built by Jobs for the Future (JFF), this toolkit helps Early Colleges organize, analyze and understand their data.

From Oregon's state website, an outline of Governor Kitzhaber's recent plan to establish the Oregon Education Investment Board (OEIB), where there were previously 2 separate bodies (one for k-12 and one for postsecondary). This focus on a "zero-to-20 system," intends to help the Governor meet his goal of "all Oregonians earn[ing] a high school diploma...prepared for college and work, and...80% of students achieve at least two years of post-secondary education or training."