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"To a limited extent, research directly influences classroom practce when teachers and researchers collaborate in design experiments, or when interested teachers incorporate ideas from research into their classroom practice. This appears as the only line directly linking research and practice in Figure 11.1. More typically, ideas from research are filtered through the development of education materials; through pre-service and in-service teacher and administrator education programs; through public policies at the national, state, and school district levels; and through the public's beliefs about learning and teaching, often gleaned from the popular media and from their own experiences in school. These are the four arenas that mediate the link between research and practice in Figure 11.1 The public includes teachers, whose beliefs may be influenced by popular presentations of research, and parents, whose beliefs about learning and teaching affect classroom practice as well. Several aspects of Figure 11.1 are worth noting. First, the influence of research on the four mediating arenas-education materials, pre-service and in-service teacher and administrator education programs, public policy, and public opinion and the media-has typically been weak for a variety of reasons. Educators generally do not look to research for guidance. The concern of researchers for the validity and robustness of their work, as well as their focus on underlying constructs that explain learning, often differ from the focus of educators on the applicability of htose constructs in real classroom settings with many students, restricted time, and a variety of demands. Even the language used by researchers is very different from that familiar to teachers. And the full schedules of many teachers leaves them with little time to identify and read relevant research. These factors contribute to the feeling voiced by many teachers that research has largely been irrelevant to their work (Fleming,

"These are 23 top online degree program indicator rankings that will be published: 1. Online Bachelor's: Student Engagement and Assessment 2. Online Bachelor's: Student Services and Technology 3. Online Bachelor's: Faculty Credentials and Training 4. Online Business: Student Engagement and Accreditation 5. Online Business: Student Services and Technology 6. Online Business: Faculty Credentials and Training 7. Online Business: Admissions Selectivity 8. Online Nursing: Student Engagement and Accreditation 9. Online Nursing: Student Services and Technology 10. Online Nursing: Faculty Credentials and Training 11. Online Nursing: Admissions Selectivity 12. Online Education: Student Engagement and Accreditation 13. Online Education: Student Services and Technology 14. Online Education: Faculty Credentials and Training 15. Online Education: Admissions Selectivity 16. Online Engineering: Student Engagement and Accreditation 17. Online Engineering: Student Services and Technology 18. Online Engineering: Faculty Credentials and Training 19. Online Engineering: Admissions Selectivity 20. Online Computer Information Technology: Student Engagement and Accreditation 21. Online Computer Information Technology: Student Services and Technology 22. Online Computer Information Technology: Faculty Credentials and Training 23. Online Computer Information Technology: Admissions Selectivity"

"The LEARNING, DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY Program prepares professionals to design and evaluate educationally informed and empirically grounded learning environments, products, and programs that effectively employ emergent technologies in a variety of settings."

Valdosta State continues its efforts to reach the underserved population of adults who do not have a college degree. As part of the Complete College Georgia initiative, Valdosta State is strengthening existing programs and creating new ones to improve overall student success, especially in the area of access for working adults and members of the military.

This week, Jamie Merisotis, president and CEO of the Lumina Foundation for Education, released a statement offering ideas for a national strategy to rapidly train workers for new jobs; among these, prior learning assessment (PLA) was cited as one possible game-changer. But beyond CLEP and the controversial challenge exam, how can enrollment managers and academic leaders assess prior learning effectively and with rigor? We asked Denise Hart, director of adult education and creator of the Success Program at Fairleigh Dickinson University, and author of a landmark study of prior learning assessment portfolios, for techniques that institutions should be thinking about.

As institutions invest in outreach to students deemed academically "at risk," software technologies to assist in early alert are proliferating on the market. Jennifer Jones, who previously managed a comprehensive program for identifying at-risk students at the University of Alabama, offers checklists of the questions you need to ask up front, prior to procuring new software

"The market for "continuing education" is potentially much larger than undergraduate. After those four years of college, there are a lot more years in a rapidly-changing workplace. Maybe that's where the real money lies? Could providing the on-going, lifelong learning be the place where some of the costs for the face-to-face undergraduate education are carried? Maybe the content gets paid for by the lifelong learners, and the undergrads get it at reduced cost? Recall what John Daniel said about the US Open University - it failed because it went after undergraduate first, not graduate."