Social justice-oriented teacher education programs infuse critical pedagogies in their coursework to build teachers' capacity to design and enact teaching that seeks to disrupt systemic oppression and injustice. Graduates of these programs often seek teaching positions in schools that serve working class communities of color with the goal of…

This paper is part of the special issue on Teacher Learning and Practice within Organizational Contexts. Shifting instructional practices in elementary schools to include more equitable, reform-based pedagogies is imperative for supporting students' development as science learners. Teachers need high quality professional development (PD) to learn…

Growth mindset plays an important role in students' motivation for learning. Students who believe that their abilities are malleable are more likely to set mastery goals and to persist when encountering difficulties. Design-based makerspace -- or a makerspace structured with design-based learning components -- has many features known to improve…

When this author first started graduate school, she was an incurable snoop--deeply curious about the lifestyles of her professors. She looked through the bookcases in their offices, studied the clutter on their desks, and asked personal questions about everything from how they balanced work with family to how many hours they slept at night. She…

This article reports on a public school that is succeeding in encouraging Latino high school students to select Computer Science (CS) as a major. The students attend a charter high school designed to encourage low-income Latino students to attend college and attain proficiency in English, Spanish, and computers. Using data from surveys and by…

A recent employer survey sponsored by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills found that the skills new job entrants most need for success in the workplace--oral and written communication, time management, critical thinking, problem solving, personal accountability, and the ability to work effectively with others--are the areas in which recent…

Five issues of the journal of the California Association for the Gifted comprise this document. The first issue focuses on the contributions of the late Jeanne Delp, a leading California educator. Articles by Delp include: "Who is Virgil T. Frey?,""How to Live Successfully with the Gifted Child,""Strangers among the…

A recent California task force report on middle grade education, "Caught in the Middle," recommends that the master schedule provide for extended time blocks for core curriculum courses. Several goals of middle school education will be fulfilled by the program which is often called "core block" or "block time." The…

This case study investigates the development of the understanding of constructivist theory among students in a Masters level elementary teacher education program within a particular course. The focus of the study is a seminar entitled "Advanced Seminar in Child Development". The questions explored include: How do students' ideas of…