One way to help frame a focus on problems instead of things is the Grand Challenges concept, which has been used in many other fields to date. Grand Challenges are an articulation of large-scale, complex problems that may be addressed through coordinated and sustained efforts but require long-term effort. Often, the articulation of Grand…

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted schools across the country and has exacerbated education shortages in localities that were already struggling. Stakeholders at both state and local education agencies reflected the need to connect and learn from their peers about emerging policies or practices to address educator shortages. This brief describes…

The purpose of this article is to describe the learnings of primary school teachers in rural Guatemala as a result of an action research experience. This experience took place in the context of the "Basic Education Quality and Transitions" activity, or BEQT, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and…

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, it was apparent that American jobs are undergoing massive technological transformation. In-demand careers increasingly require digital literacy skills, and for many industries digital skills are entry-level competencies for new hires and incumbent workers. Since the pandemic, digital demands in the U.S. workplace…

Rethinking the balance between federal and state responsibilities for supporting colleges and universities and making higher education accessible and affordable for students is important. There is little disagreement about the current education financing system being inadequate. The debate is about the best way to solve the problem. In this…

A skills gap challenges educators and policymakers alike. To help meet the economic and educational needs for the modern workplace, Congress recently reauthorized the Perkins Act. The bill, "Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act," emphasizes an important mission of education in the 21st century, that is,…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) began to take form when dozens of educators from across the country were led by governors and chief state school officers in gathering and reviewing the academic standards of states that had the best outcomes. Their goal was to determine what the current best academic standards were in the country and then…

Student retention models were tested via structural equation modeling to examine the interrelations and predictability among socioeconomic status, psychosocial, and student success variables with a sample of 445 undergraduate students attending a large Hispanic serving institution. The proposed theoretical model included socioeconomic status…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015 offers a number of opportunities for states and districts to advance deeper learning and ensure that all students graduate from high school with the ability to think critically, solve complex problems, collaborate with peers, communicate effectively, and be self-directed. Deeper learning is the…

The COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated with vivid clarity how important it is for people to have digital literacy skills. From the workplace to the classroom and beyond, being able to use digital tools effectively is fundamental to success. To succeed in this rapidly changing environment, workers need broad-based digital problem-solving skills that…

How important is it that every student in a school is excited about learning? Should a student be allowed to use all his/her strengths in learning? Do you know someone who wasn't a particularly good student but has been very successful in life? What these seemingly unrelated questions have in common is an appreciation for the range of talents that…

Two studies examine how the time at which problem solving is suspended relative to an impasse affects the impact of incidental hints. An impasse is a point in problem solving at which a problem solver is not making progress and does not know how to proceed. In both studies, work on remote associates problems was suspended before an impasse was…

In American popular culture, the word "rural" invokes images of sunny farms and little red school-houses--while "urban" means drugs, poverty, and crime. But rural schools face many of the same challenges as their urban counterparts. The problems of rural schools are often invisible to the public and policy makers. The solutions…

This article discusses schema-based instruction (SBI) as an alternative to traditional instruction for enhancing the mathematical problem solving performance of students with learning disabilities (LD). In the authors' most recent research and developmental efforts, they designed SBI to meet the needs of middle school students with LD in inclusive…

We explored the affective states that students experienced during effortful problem solving activities. We conducted a study where 41 students solved difficult analytical reasoning problems from the Law School Admission Test. Students viewed videos of their faces and screen captures and judged their emotions from a set of 14 states (basic…