In part, because many planned organizational improvements fall short of their intended goals, higher education administrators have not been able to promote sustained improvements. Most university leaders have been promoted into leadership roles without experience and training to enable them to foresee and address unintended outcomes of their decision making; often, the culture in higher education institutions promotes continuation of the status quo. However, in times of crisis, such as those related to reductions in budgets, many unintended consequences develop as leaders attempt to address change. Unintended consequences have implications related to the success or failure of planned change and higher education administrators must address such outcomes appropriately. This article discusses issues related to unintended consequences of policy changes in higher education.

This presentation was prepared for the Council of Australian University Librarians OER Collective Community.  The Community comprises mostly library staff who are supporting the production of open texts at thier institutions, many of whom are new to OER and open textbooks.  The aim was to provide a foundation for advocacy for the adoption, adaptation, and authoring of open textbooks locally.  Therefore, it establishes a shared definition and purpose of advocacy, especially as it relates to openness, and then provides six practical strategies for advocates that could be adapted and implemented for local contexts.

Some students misbehave because they are trying to attract teacher attention. Surprisingly, many students who value adult attention don't really care if it is positive (praise) or negative attention (reprimands)--they just want attention!
Unfortunately, instructors with students who thrive on teacher attention can easily fall into a 'reprimand trap.' The scenario might unfold much like this: First, the student misbehaves. Then the teacher approaches the student and reprimands him or her for misbehaving. Because the student finds the negative teacher attention to be reinforcing, he or she continues to misbehave-and the teacher naturally responds by reprimanding the student more often! An escalating, predictable cycle is established, with the student repeatedly acting-out and teacher reprimanding him or her.
Teachers can break out of this cycle, though, by using 'random positive attention' with students. Essentially, the instructor starts to ignore student attention-seeking behaviors, while at the same time 'randomly' giving the student positive attention. That is, the student receives regular positive teacher attention but at times unconnected to misbehavior. So the student still gets the adult attention that he or she craves. More importantly, the link between student misbehavior and resulting negative teacher attention is broken.

Motivating a reluctant student to complete schoolwork is not easy. In a typical classroom, students can choose from a number of sources of potential reinforcement (Billington & DiTommaso, 2003)--and academic tasks often take a back seat to competing behaviors such as talking with peers. One way that teachers can increase the attractiveness of schoolwork is by structuring lessons or assignments around topics or activities of high interest to the student (Miller et al., 2003).In fact, with planning, the teacher can set up a 'trap' that uses motivating elements to capture a student's attention to complete academic tasks (Alber & Heward, 1996). Here is a 6-step blue-print for building an academic 'motivation trap' (adapted from Alber & Heward, 1996).

Good two-way communication between families and schools is necessary for students' success. Not surprisingly, research shows that the more parents and teachers share relevant information with each other about a student, the better equipped both will be to help that student achieve academically. Opportunities for two-way communication include: (1) Parent conferences; (2) Parent-teacher organizations or school community councils; (3) Weekly or monthly folders of student work sent home for parent review and comment; (4) Phone calls; and (5) E-mail or school Web site. This paper presents ideas for building parent-teacher partnerships.

Through funding provided by Georgia’s Race to the Top initiative and in partnership with the Georgia Department of Education, new self-paced common core professional development course Mathematics teachers.

The Georgia Department of Education has developed two flexible, ready-to-use courses intended to support Georgia educators in the understanding and effective implementation of the CCGPS.

The courses may be used by individual educators, professional learning communities, or by districts or schools. The time required for the courses may be customized for a variety of applications by expanding the amount of time spent on the activities and in discussion.

Each course contains hands-on activities, related readings and research, recommended topics for discussion, web and video resources, and self-assessments.

The content of the courses was developed under a grant from the U. S. Department of Education. However, the content does not necessarily represent the policy of the U. S. Department of Education, and endorsement by the Federal Government should not be assumed.

Through funding provided by Georgia’s Race to the Top initiative and in partnership with the Georgia Department of Education, new self-paced common core professional development courses are available for Mathematics teachers.

The Georgia Department of Education has developed two flexible, ready-to-use courses intended to support Georgia educators in the understanding and effective implementation of the CCGPS.

The courses may be used by individual educators, professional learning communities, or by districts or schools. The time required for the courses may be customized for a variety of applications by expanding the amount of time spent on the activities and in discussion.

Each course contains hands-on activities, related readings and research, recommended topics for discussion, web and video resources, and self-assessments.

The content of the courses was developed under a grant from the U. S. Department of Education. However, the content does not necessarily represent the policy of the U. S. Department of Education, and endorsement by the Federal Government should not be assumed.

Through funding provided by Georgia’s Race to the Top initiative and in partnership with the Georgia Department of Education, new self-paced common core professional development courses are available for English Mathematics teachers.

The Georgia Department of Education has developed two flexible, ready-to-use courses intended to support Georgia educators in the understanding and effective implementation of the CCGPS.

The courses may be used by individual educators, professional learning communities, or by districts or schools. The time required for the courses may be customized for a variety of applications by expanding the amount of time spent on the activities and in discussion.

Each course contains hands-on activities, related readings and research, recommended topics for discussion, web and video resources, and self-assessments.

The content of the courses was developed under a grant from the U. S. Department of Education. However, the content does not necessarily represent the policy of the U. S. Department of Education, and endorsement by the Federal Government should not be assumed.

Students can sometimes have emotional outbursts in school settings. This fact will not surprise many teachers, who have had repeated experience in responding to serious classroom episodes of student agitation. Such outbursts can be attributed in part to the relatively high incidence of mental health issues among children and youth. It is estimated, for example, that at least one in five students in American schools will experience a mental health disorder by adolescence (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1999). But even students not identified as having behavioral or emotional disorders may occasionally have episodes of agitation triggered by situational factors such as peer bullying, frustration over poor academic performance, stressful family relationships, or perceived mistreatment by educators.

This 14-minute video for educators introduces working with Common Core standards for English and math. How will teaching to the Common Core affect teaching practice in the classroom? Teachers and Principals discuss the opportunities Common Core offers to their students and to their own focus and teaching practice.

This 14-minute video lesson for high school educators introduces working with Common Core Standards. How will teaching to the Common Core affect teaching practice in the classroom? How can teachers help students learn to apply math and think about problem solving outside the math classroom? What does an emphasis on “depth” look like in practice? How can teachers make adapting to the Common Core a reflection point in their own practice? Teachers and principals discuss the opportunities Common Core offers for their students and for their own focus and teaching practice.

This 14-minute video lesson for middle school educators introduces working with Common Core State Standards. How will teaching to the Common Core affect teaching practice in the classroom? See how Common Core has affected teaching and learning at two pilot schools where they have already been adapted. Does the dialogue in the pilot school math classroom sound like your classroom now? What has the culture shift been like for teachers and students? How will the shift in emphasis on non-fiction reading and expository and persuasive writing benefit students? Teachers and principals discuss the opportunities Common Core offers for their students and for their own focus and teaching practice.

This 14-minute video introduces the key features and differences of the new Common Core State standards for math. It looks at the purpose of the standards for mathematical practice and how they should be integrated with content. It looks at how teaching fewer topics in each grade will change educator planning. And it discusses how the new standards can help close the achievement gap.

Teachers strive to develop partnerships with parents to support student learning. Strong communication is fundamental to this partnership and to building a sense of community between home and school. This article provides a range of communication opportunities available to teachers, including the emergency use of technology. Barriers to communication are considered in conjunction with potential solutions.

he teacher's most important objective when faced with a defiant or non-compliant student is to remain outwardly calm. Educators who react to defiant behavior by becoming visibly angry, raising their voices, or attempting to intimidate the student may actually succeed only in making the student's oppositional behavior worse! While the strategies listed here may calm an oppositional student, their main purpose is to help the teacher to keep his or her cool. Remember: any conflict requires at least two people. A power struggle can be avoided if the instructor does not choose to take part in that struggle.

This series of four e-courses available through the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction will help you plan and implement practices that create welcoming environments, learning engagement and success for immigrant and refugee students in Wisconsin schools. All four interactive modules are designed to support educators, educational staff and leaders at all levels to enhance their understanding by working in the e-course modules individually or in groups. Within each module you links to supplementary resources and templates to support your learning.

On May 25, 2023, #GoOpen held a public webinar titled, "Educators Using OER to Identify and Remediate Bias."  This session focused on using OER to engage all learners through an interactive Climate Education experience and was facilitated by ISKME professional learning specialist, Joanna Schimizzi, and consultant, Christina Spears, with moderator, Amee Evans Godwin.

As classroom managers, teachers regularly use commands to direct students to start and stop activities. Instructors find commands to be a crucial tool for classroom management, serving as instructional signals that help students to conform to the teacher's expectations for appropriate behaviors.

One of the greatest frustrations mentioned by many teachers is that their students are often not motivated to learn. Teachers quickly come to recognize the warning signs of poor motivation in their classroom: students put little effort into homework and classwork assignments, slump in their seats and fail to participate in class discussion, or even become confrontational toward the teacher when asked about an overdue assignment. One common method for building motivation is to tie student academic performance and classroom participation to specific rewards or privileges. Critics of reward systems note, however, that they can be expensive and cumbersome to administer and may lead the student to engage in academics only when there is an outside 'payoff.' While there is no magic formula for motivating students, the creative teacher can sometimes encourage student investment in learning in ways that do not require use of formal reward systems.

Phenomena-Based Science Teaching is a teaching approach that is centered around the observation of natural events or phenomena. Rather than starting with abstract concepts, this approach begins with a real-world phenomenon and guides students through an inquiry-based process of investigating it. In this professional learning activity, we will explore Phenomena-Based Science Teaching Strategies that can be used in any science classroom.