An evaluation of the effectiveness of a large-scale professional development (PD) programme delivered to 258 schools in Queensland, Australia is presented. Formal evaluations were conducted at two stages during the programme using a tool developed from Desimone's five core features of effective PD. Descriptive statistics of 38 questions and…

This study addressed how different instructional strategies affected preservice elementary teachers' levels of math anxiety and their achievement in a math content course while considering descriptions of their experiences in the course in relation to their math anxiety and achievement. The instructional strategies used were traditional teaching…

The present study assesses the attitudes and practices of teachers in relation to the national program Escuela 2.0 in Spain, implemented in 2009. The study analyzes attitudes and needs of 424 teachers and it assesses teaching practices developed with Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Data is analyzed through mixed methods with…

With increasing demands on student achievement as set forth by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) (2001), teachers are the catalyst for improving their students' performance (Marzano, 2000). Existing studies on the use of formative assessment as a process by which teachers elicit information of their students' progress and use that information to…

This paper reports on a case study of a project-focused introduction to big data science course. The pedagogy of the course leveraged boundary theory, where students were positioned to be at the boundary between a client's desire to understand their data and the academic class. The results of the case study demonstrate that using live clients…

The present study sought to explore (a) the extent to which certain school subjects are perceived "sui generis" more interesting than others and (b) the extent to which students' interest in a subject is related to their study choices. A mixed-methods approach was chosen in which an individual interest questionnaire and an open-ended…

We have undertaken a multi-semester study of student ideas in an undergraduate general education astronomy integrated lecture and lab course with a focus on active learning at an urban, minority serving institution. We collected individual interviews ("N" = 15) and course artifacts ("N" approximately 60), such as pre-course…

Informal mentors likely play a substantial role in novice teacher learning, yet we know little about them, especially in relation to formal mentoring, which is the cornerstone to most induction programs. This study analyzes survey and interview data from 57 first-year mathematics teachers from 11 districts to investigate differences in the…

This study examined the content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) constructed by a group of 24 pre-service elementary teacher participants as they learned about the moon's phases, inquiry learning, and use of the Internet message boards as a teaching tool as a part of their science teaching methods course. The MOON Project (More…

The purpose of this study was to determine ways "Digital Biographies," a Project Based Learning Unit, developed 21st century skills while simultaneously supporting NCLB accountability standards. The main goal of this study was to inform professional practice by exploring ways to address two separate, seemingly opposing, demands of…

Many studies have indicated that by having students work in groups and participate in project-based activities provide a more active approach to their learning process. With the increased emphasis on social constructivism, the need to acquire communications, organizational and teamwork skills have become vital lifelong learning skills for the…