Educational leaders are notoriously busy; too busy to keep up with educational research
just for their own edification and enjoyment. Leaders need to be able to locate
research that they can use to make choices about program implementation. They also
need to be able to communicate effectively about these choices to key stakeholders
through presentations, reports and conversations.
Research that is easy to locate and provided in a usable format, such as brief summaries
or presentation slides, can help educational leaders solve a variety of problems
they encounter every day.
For example, one problem educational leaders often face when seeking support for
professional development programs is the need to present data showing the impact
of the programs on student achievement. A direct cause-and-effect relationship between
professional development and student outcomes is difficult to determine through
indisputable scientific methods, especially using broad measures such as standardized
test scores. For this reason, demonstrating the direct effects of such programs
on students can be challenging.
A research-based solution for this problem could take the form of a focused summary
of what can be shown about the impact of a particular program on student outcomes.
The solution might also provide links to correlating research about the difficulties
of measuring professional development effects on students. The solution might even
include a presentation slide with summary bullets that could be used verbatim in
an educational leader's report or presentation.
The Solutions Index
The Solutions Index is designed to make research-based
solutions easily accessible to educational leaders. The Index focuses on key areas
of concern and problems faced by educational leaders, and provides links to a variety
of PDFs and Web sites that contain information leaders can use to understand these
issues and to create solutions for them.
Browse the Index to find solutions to a particular problem, or, if you are looking
for information about a specific topic, choose the topic in the drop-down list to
jump directly to information about that topic.
