The purpose of this study was to examine how four experienced music teachers describe their navigation of the micropolitical landscape in their schools. Research questions included: (a) How do the teacher participants describe their strategies used to navigate the political, contextual, and interpersonal landscape of their schools and school…

Access to Malaysian government schools is prohibited for refugee children, and hidden refugee schools only reach a minority of Burmese students in Malaysia. This study used a participatory culture-specific consultation (PCSC) approach to examine the perspectives of Burmese refugee teachers on Burmese refugee student socioemotional issues and…

Rural schools have repeatedly been subjected to standardizing state and federal education policies that seek to minimize variance in instructional systems and increase the number of college- and career-ready graduates. The Race to the Top policy agenda combined standards-based and accountability-based reforms to meet these objectives and once…

The current study is a qualitative analysis of the results of a literacy skills intervention with a group comprising of three individuals with Down syndrome and three individuals with other developmental disabilities. The intervention was developed to address the concern that individuals in this population are often only exposed to functional…

Using case study method, this study examines the impact of an inquiry-based learning program among a cohort of first-semester undergraduates (n = 104) at a large public university in the southeastern United States who are aspiring to become teachers. The Boyer Commission (1999) asserted that inquiry-based learning should be the foundation of…

This comparative case study examines the prevalence of caring practices in two higher performing and two lower performing urban high schools and the contextual factors that helped or hindered the extent to which students felt cared for. We found that higher performing schools demonstrated caring communities, where interpersonal relationships and…

Although international teacher education partnerships necessitate relationships with host education communities, much of the literature addresses only the impact of the overseas teaching experiences on the American university intern. For this project, we investigated the benefits of participation in an international teacher education program for…

Cultural awareness and intercultural competence (IC) of students in foreign language (FL) instruction have been widely examined (e.g. Byram, 1997; Belz, 2002). The importance of the FL teacher in aiding students' IC development is less extensively researched, however. Author (2014), Kohler (2015), Sercu et al. (2005) and Sercu (2006) are a few…

More than 6,000 charter schools exist in the United States, and of these 120 are Montessori charter schools. When studying charter school practices, researchers often examine issues such as performance accountability measures and effectiveness of charter school curricula. In doing so, the outcomes often overlook the challenges for teachers as they…

Teamwork, one of the core competencies for the twenty-first century learner, is a critical skill for work and learning. However, assessing teamwork is complex, in particular, developing a measure of teamwork that is domain-generic and applicable across a wide range of learners. This paper documents one such study that leverages technology to help…

The use of homework has been a controversial topic in education for many years: what types of homework to give, how much, and how often. In previous years, Ocean Montessori School (a pseudonym), the site of this study, offered homework like that of traditional public schools, such as worksheets and rote skill practice. Feeling conflicted about the…

The Teaching for Transformative Experiences in Science (TTES) model was designed to facilitate the application of academic learning in students' everyday experiences. In the current study, we describe a 2-year design-based intervention that aimed to further develop and evaluate the TTES model. In the first year, a teacher implemented the TTES…

This case study examines the physical aspects of a particular university classroom, and what affect specific changes to the classroom had on the perceptions of students, instructors and observers regarding the room as an effective learning space. We compare survey and focus group data collected from students taking courses in the classroom prior…

The provision of musical experiences for youth, especially in low socio-economic areas (SES), requires funded support and imaginative resourcing. This paper presents data from the Penrith (NSW Australia) Youth String Program offered in partnership by the Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO), Penrith Symphony Orchestra (PSO) and The Joan Sutherland…

The purpose of this action research is to improve the achievement of students in general and, to examine the perception of students and teachers about cooperative learning, to identify major factors affecting the implementation of cooperative learning and to identify the possible strategies used to improve cooperative learning in Madawalabu…