Background/Context: In the early elementary grades, many students do not achieve literacy proficiency due to inadequate personalized literacy instruction (Taylor et al., 2010). Despite increasing evidence that differentiated instruction informed by assessments of students' reading abilities can improve learning more effectively than…

Florida's Broward County Public Schools and the University of Chicago engaged in a Research-Practice Partnership (RPP) to scale teacher practices that support students' critical thinking. As part of the RPP, Jeanne Century's research team conducted research to determine what barriers might limit the spread of these practices. The findings show…

As the Baby Boomer generation reaches old age, there has been a significant increase in the number of older adults needing healthcare over the past decade. The physiology of aging is therefore a highly relevant topic for the preclinical medical curriculum. I describe a new capstone unit on the physiology of aging, placed at the end a medical…

This applied dissertation was designed to verify the effectiveness of professional learning communities (PLC), as it relates to the participation of administrators and teachers. Prior studies have emphasized the importance of continuing learning experiences for school administrators while working. Chiptin (2013) pointed out the importance of a…

Acceleration of courses has been documented to achieve an extended academic calendar, financial benefits to universities, time savings for professors, and provide more flexibility for students. The purpose of this study was to examine preservice teachers' learning experiences while enrolled in two accelerated teacher preparation courses. Results…

The study addressed the gap in fifth-grade science proficiency between English language learners (ELLs) enrolled in two different science programs in a large school district in the Southeast United States. The Inspire program was implemented in 125 schools, while a combination of Inspire and Promoting Science among English Language Learners…

Pioneer Valley Books (PVB) contracted McREL International to investigate the effects of the third grade Literacy Footprints (LFP) guided reading system on English language arts (ELA) performance on state assessments. LFP is a research-based, comprehensive, small-group literacy tool that facilitates explicit and systematic guided reading…

School gardens programs and garden-based education are positioned to become fixtures in educational institutions given recent trends and the national interest in gardens at school sites. Agricultural education professionals have integrated school gardens into core science, social studies, math, and language arts courses as well as agricultural…

Billions of dollars are spent every year on teacher professional development (PD) programs (Fermanich, 2002; Odden et al., 2002; TNTP, 2015; U.S. Department of Education, 2014). The few rigorous evaluations of PD programs that have been done usually report a null effect on student achievement, leading many scholars to conclude that teacher PD…

In recent decades, in line with improvements in technology, schools have increasingly opted for Online Credit Recovery Programs (OCRPs) over traditional face-to-face courses. Despite sharing a common goal with traditional face-to-face programs--providing a pathway for students to get back on track, to avoid failing additional courses and falling…

Educators, researchers, and policy makers concerned about college under-enrollment among underserved groups of students have traditionally focused reform efforts at the high school level. Over the last several decades, however, there has been a growing interest in improving college readiness beginning at the elementary level. Recently, the…

Return on investment (ROI) is a commonly used metric for organizations concerned with demonstrating the value of their investments; it can be used to determine whether funds spent providing professional development programs for Extension professionals are good investments. This article presents a method for calculating ROI for an onboarding…

Decades of research have emphasized the need for engaging, accessible ways to help students learn fundamental mathematical concepts. Research also shows that teacher beliefs about teaching and learning have an outsized influence on the quality and effectiveness of curricular interventions. This article reports results of an independent evaluation…

The Wallace Foundation's Partnerships for Social and Emotional Learning Initiative (PSELI) is a six-year initiative that The Wallace Foundation launched in 2017 to explore whether and how children benefit when schools and their out-of-school-time programs partner to improve social and emotional learning (SEL), as well as what it takes to do this…

Flipping or inverting a course is a relatively new approach to structuring a course. Using this method, the lectures traditionally delivered during regularly scheduled class time are converted to a media for delivery online, often in the form of videos. Learners are expected to view the online lectures prior to class. Then in turn, in-class time…