As NIET enters its 20th year, research continues to point to the effectiveness of NIET's support and the positive impact of investing in human capital. The Winter 2020 Research Summary captures both NIET's key long-term impact, shares promising results highlighting that the TAP System [The System for Teacher and Student Advancement] sustains…

Drawing from observations and interview data, this essay examines the role of "hormiguero agency" in nurturing empowered identities amongst Latin@s in Phoenix, Arizona. Specific links are made to how dehumanizing state level policies are resisted in multiple spaces, including schools, activist organizations, and within underground…

If your professional learning seems stalled, maybe you could put yourself and your colleagues in the driver's seat of professional development. The authors describe a professional learning approach that gives teachers both a say in what they focus their learning on and a chance to practice and refine teaching strategies that they hope to…

The Alhambra district, along with 11 other districts in Maricopa County, have forged an alliance to implement a performance-based evaluation system that supports teachers in attaining, maintaining, and enhancing core competencies aligned to a common vision of instructional improvement. At the heart of the system is the Learning Observation…

Extension, with its access to long-term volunteers, has the unique ability to teach citizen scientists about the connection between climate variability and the resulting effects on plants, animals, and thus, humans. The USA National Phenology Network's Nature's Notebook on-line program provides a science learning tool for Extension's Master…

It has long been noted in research literature that there does not exist a shared definition of integration of science and mathematics. Classifying a particular set of integration practices by one of many labels has limited value. Moving past the definition debate, this study describes the development and testing of the Mathematics Integrated into…

The protest against Arizona House Bill 2281 designed to ban Ethnic Studies from K-12 public schools on 12 May 2010 in Tucson resulted in 15 arrests. Students walked out of their classrooms in large numbers to defend their Mexican American Studies curriculum and program. Based primarily on participant observation of the protest, the authors examine…

This article reports on research projects conducted primarily by first and second generation Mexican American high school students who document how school relationships are shaped by Arizona's racist political discourses. They conducted observations of their school experiences and then wrote up what they were observing in field notes. Field note…

In the introductory assignment, each randomly assigned group spends about 10 to 15 minutes at each station. The author incorporates as much sensory stimulation in the activity as possible. At the first station, students view a PowerPoint show from a geology class the author participated in at the Grand Canyon. At station two, students look at a…

This paper presents the Arizona edition of the National Council on Teacher Quality's 2008 "State Teacher Policy Yearbook". The 2008 "Yearbook" focuses on how state policies impact the retention of effective new teachers. This policy evaluation is broken down into three areas that encompass 15 goals. Broadly, these goals examine…