The ability of colleges and universities to implement strategic academic decisions is constantly challenged by a variable external environment, mounting public expectations, and evolving academic priorities. Although academic decision making is often dismissed by critics both inside and outside higher education as slow, parochial, and ineffective, institutions can and have developed processes to effectively address today's complex challenges. With the proper attention by administrative, faculty, and trustee leaders, academic decision making can comprise a robust set of processes essential to defining the mission, priorities, and activities of colleges and universities. This book explores the intersection of academic decision making with contemporary, cutting-edge challenges for which no simple solution exists. It moves the issue of decision making outside the contested arena of stakeholder responsibilities, and presents a series of distinct and unique chapters that illustrate how colleges and universities are creating and sustaining dynamic and effective decision-making processes. Issues such as entrepreneurial and commercial strategies, changing research infrastructure, inter-institutional cooperation, evolving expectations for student involvement and campus community, and technology and its required investments create ongoing challenges that colleges and universities must address. To respond to these challenges, campus leaders often cannot draw upon their wealth of experience or time-tested processes. Instead, they must find new ways to create and use decision-making structures and processes. Furthermore, as the issues change, the people, their roles, and their interactions will be different. In some cases, new people will enter the decision-making arena: For instance, students may play stronger roles, as may trustees or outside stakeholders including faculty from other institutions involved in joint academic degree programs. Faculty roles may also change as institutions become more entrepreneurial, wi

The Savvy Student’s Guide to Online Learning prepares students of all kinds for contemporary online learning. While technologies and formats vary, this book serves as an authoritative resource for any student enrolling in an online degree program or taking an online course.

Topics covered include:

• How to become a great online student

• Creating an online presence

• Interaction and communication techniques

• Online group projects and individual work

• Technological requirements and how to get technical support

• Online classroom "netiquette" and time management

The authors, both experts in online education, introduce the information and skills required of successful online students to navigate this new learning landscape with confidence. A highly useful companion website provides video presentations that explain the different types of online learning as well as a real online course with activities for students to practice and interact with other learners around the world.

A forward-thinking look at performance assessment in the 21st century

Next Generation Assessment: Moving Beyond the Bubble Test to Support 21st Century Learning provides needed answers to the nation's growing concerns about educational testing in America. Drawing on research and the experiences of leading states and countries, this new book examines how performance assessments can offer a feasible alternative to current high stakes tests. As parents, educators, and policymakers have increasingly criticized the effects of the teaching to the test mandate from the No Child Left Behind Act, the need for this resource has never been more critical.

This summary volume to Beyond the Bubble Test speaks to the nationwide unease about current tests' focus on low-level skills, like recalling and restating facts, rather than higher-order skills such as problem-solving, analyzing, and synthesizing information. It illustrates how schools can use authentic assessments to improve teaching and learning as they involve students in conducting research, designing investigations, developing products and solutions, using technology, and communicating their ideas in many forms. This important book:

Serves as a must-have resource for those interested in the most current research about how to create valid and reliable performance assessments Explains how educators can improve practice by developing, using, and scoring performance assessments Helps policymakers and educators accurately assess the benefits and possibilities of adopting performance assessments nationally

If you're an educator, researcher, graduate student, district administrator, or education policy specialist, Next Generation Assessment is an indispensable resource you'll turn to again and again.

This bestseller describes alternatives to lecturing, traditional questioning, and individual pencil and paper tasks. It offers practical advice on how teachers can harness the potential of the extended period.

What is Response to Intervention and why should we care? With this question, Margaret Searle begins her exploration of the RTI approach to classroom instruction and intervention from her perspective as a seasoned teacher, principal, and administrator.

Built on a solid foundation of best practice, RTI draws on the strengths and successes that many districts and schools already have in place. For the plan to be effective, however, proactive and consistent leadership is essential. With this in mind, Searle outlines the critical roles played by school leaders at each step and offers practical answers to the questions they will likely face.

* Where should I start implementing or improving our RTI plan?
* Where do I find high-quality research-based interventions?
* What's a pyramid of interventions and what do I put in the tiers?
* How can I help teachers set and reach student goals?
* How is RTI different from what we've tried before?
* How can we make this whole thing work without going crazy?

Searle shows how school leaders can use the RTI model to coordinate resources and foster continuous student improvement and achievement. This breakthrough approach replaces the old "wait to fail" mind-set with proactive efforts that will support all students in danger of not reaching their potential.

This is an essential guide for school leaders who want to support, focus, and sustain their RTI goals and build a culture of data-driven decision making.