The years between pre-K and third grade are vital for creating the foundation for later school success. The skills students develop at one age level or grade must be built upon and reinforced in later grades. Furthermore, for students to sustain gains made in one grade, they must continue to receive high-quality teaching in subsequent grades.…

Regardless of the source of the curriculum, classroom teachers make the necessary and crucial, final decisions of specifically what and how to teach. This paper examines how three, fourth-grade teachers, who planned together voluntarily, decided what learning activities were "practical" for their students. In their seminal work, Doyle…

The "Kentucky Model Curriculum Framework" serves as a facilitation guide to help an instructional supervisor, principal, and/or teacher leader provide a rationale for the need to revisit curriculum planning, offering some background information and exercises to generate "future-oriented" thinking, and suggesting a process for…

In school districts and charter school networks nationwide, instructional leaders are developing plans to address the enormous challenges faced by their students, families, teachers, and staff over the past year. To help kick-start the planning process, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute presents "The Acceleration Imperative," an…

This article considers the role of teacher agency and curricular flexibility as pedagogic features of Shoah education in Israeli state schools. The analysis is based on a recent national study which included a quantitative survey (questionnaires), qualitative methods (focus groups, interviews, observations) and a socio-historical review. As…

Originating in Asia, lesson study is gradually spreading around the globe. As evident from the papers in this issue, we have much to learn as it is implemented in a variety of cultural contexts. In this article we reflect on the goals of lesson study, the organizational supports required to sustain the practice in various contexts, and the…

Recent decades have shown growing interest among outer circle language researchers and practitioners in the discussion of communicative language teaching (CLT), as both a leading teaching model and a frequently disputed dimension of language pedagogy. Repeatedly, the debate returns to the question of how to best implement CLT as a Western product…

This study was conducted to investigate eighth-grade science teachers' self-efficacy during the implementation of a new, problem-based science curriculum. The curriculum included applications of LEGO® robotics, a new technology for these teachers. Teachers' responded to structured journaling activities designed to collect information about their…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are a focus of state education policy today influencing curriculum implementation and assessment in public schools. The purpose of this narrative inquiry is to understand how high school mathematics teachers experience the transition period. Based on interviews with mathematics teachers in a high school in…

Little continues to be known about what actually happens in classrooms, particularly from a national perspective. Descriptions of classroom practices from a national vantage point can provide a bird's eye view of salient patterns and variations within an education system, especially one as centralised as that of Malaysia. With these descriptions,…

The authors discuss the research of education professionals concerned with children and youth with deafblindness, presenting three theoretical frameworks and models useful for integrating technology into learning environments: (a) UDL (universal design for learning; Meyer, Rose, & Gordon, 2014), (b) SETT (student, environment, task, tools;…

The authors present the development and perspectives of improving the quality of Information Literacy programmes in Polish technical universities, considering the Bologna Process and the general conditions of the Polish higher education system. The survey conducted in selected technical and medical universities provided an overview of changes…

Reasoning Mind products are used by over 100,000 students a year and have shown positive outcomes. In this design case we focus on implementation: how Reasoning Mind's approach evolved to tackle the challenge of achieving consistently high-quality implementations with many different schools, teachers, and students. Key insights include the…

Reasoning Mind products are used by over 100,000 students a year and have shown positive outcomes. In this design case we focus on implementation: how Reasoning Mind's approach evolved to tackle the challenge of achieving consistently high-quality implementations with many different schools, teachers, and students. Key insights include the…

Research-based digital games hold great potential to be effective tools in supporting next-generation science learning. However, as with all instructional materials, teachers significantly influence their implementation and contribute to their effectiveness. To more fully understand the contributions and challenges of teacher implementation of…