Teacher education in the USA is faced with an uncertain future. Unprecedented efforts on the part of government, philanthropic foundations, social entrepreneurs, professional societies and others are reshaping the enterprise. Warring camps have emerged to promote decidedly different visions for teacher education, with university-based teacher…

This paper reviews the findings of a participatory research project conducted with Nepali high school and university students. It examines the feelings and motivations of those students who leave the country in pursuit of higher education, and those who intentionally, or due to circumstances, stay in Nepal. An analysis of the latter is…

With the unveiling of the National Educational Technology Plan 2010, both preservice and inservice K12 teachers in the United States are expected to create a classroom environment that fosters the creation of digital citizens. However, it is unclear whether or not teacher education programs build this direct instruction, or any other method of…

Problem-based learning (PBL) spread from the medical school to other university and K-12 contexts due, in part, to the stated promise that PBL produces the target outcomes of deep content learning, increased problem-solving ability, and increased self-directed learning (Hmelo-Silver, 2004). However, research results have been unclear. This paper…

The National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality asked Public Impact to conduct a study exploring the change processes in the creation and implementation of teacher evaluation systems. This TQ Research & Policy Brief provides an overview of Public Impact's preliminary findings as they relate to the impetus for change and the political and…

When the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was reauthorized in 2004, it eliminated the requirement that individualized education programs (IEPs) include short-term objectives or benchmarks, except for students with disabilities who take alternate assessments aligned to alternate achievement standards. Instead, the IDEA regulations…

Young children with typical fluency demonstrate a range of disfluencies, or speech disruptions. One type of disruption, revision, appears to increase in frequency as syntactic skills develop. To date, this phenomenon has not been studied in children who stutter (CWS). Rispoli, Hadley, and Holt (2008) suggest a schema for categorizing speech…

Who is at risk in school, and what does race have to do with it? Studies of the extent to which race correlates with educational outcomes and elucidates achievement gaps predate the discourse on risk. In this chapter, the authors analyze the survey literature that statistically defines some racial groups and not others as being at educational…

There is a burgeoning amount of research into happiness and greatly increased popular attention, so it seems logical to add a course on happiness to the university curriculum. We encountered, in developing and running such a course, a number of dilemmas that the topic of happiness makes especially acute. Should the teacher remain separate from the…

Like the ancient sailor in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" who lamented, "water, water everywhere nor any drop to drink," many teachers feel awash in a sea of assessment data that they don't know how to use. Part of the solution, Fisher and Frey claim, is for educators to understand the three components of any effective…

Risk is positioned as a distinguishing feature of outdoor adventure education (OAE) pedagogy. Risk defines much of what happens in OAE, from participants "taking" risks to instructors "managing" risks. The taken-for-granted centrality of risk continues to have currency due to the thrill and allure of adventurous outdoor activities. This paper…

The launch of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) (2005-2014) was accompanied by a series of high-profile events and celebratory activities across the globe, which raised awareness about the Decade's objectives. Now, as the DESD approaches its mid-term, many stakeholders are asking these questions: What will…

In our current moment there is a resurgence of interest in pedagogy as an object of research and policy. In this context the Redesigning Pedagogies in the North (RPiN) project sought to improve educational outcomes for students from low-socioeconomic status communities by researching teachers' efforts to develop more connected pedagogies. However,…

Media literacy education is relevant to the social studies for a number of reasons. Media provide compelling fiction and nonfiction narratives about people, places and events. Indeed, many young people's knowledge of world events and cultures comes from media representations. Media also helps shape attitudes and opinions about history, government…

Relations were examined between epistemic beliefs, achievement goals, learning strategies, and achievement. We sought to empirically test Muis' [Muis, K. R. (2007). The role of epistemic beliefs in self-regulated learning. "Educational Psychologist," 42, 173-190] hypothesis that epistemic beliefs influence processes of self-regulated learning via…