As school leaders adjust to the demands of new college-and-career-ready (CCR) standards, research is showing a yawning gap between what students need to know and be able to do to succeed in college and beyond and how schools are currently preparing them. These higher expectations demand a more challenging curriculum, more sophisticated…

Observation measures of instructional quality tend to fall into two broad categories--those for use across subject areas and those intended for use in specific subject areas. The move toward content-specific measures is a result of research suggesting that effective teaching looks different across subject areas and that both content knowledge and…

We show that human observers strongly underestimate a linear or circular trajectory that a luminous spot follows in the dark. At slow speeds, observers are relatively accurate, but, as the speed increases, the size of the path is progressively underestimated, by up to 35%. The underestimation imposes little memory load and does not require…

Turning lectures into interactive, student-led question and answer sessions is known to increase learning, but enabling interaction in a large class seems an insurmountable task. This can discourage adoption of this new approach -- who has time to individualize responses, address questions from over 200 students and encourage active participation…

This study reports on an effort to illustrate the coupling of educational research with ongoing curriculum development to promote effective and evidence-based online learning. The research findings have been used to inform the "EarthLabs" curriculum development team as they revise existing modules and create new modules, in order to…

Many districts have implemented one-to-one technology initiatives, where students have access to computers or tablets for use in and out of school. Teachers participating in these initiatives may lack knowledge about ways to integrate technology into classroom practices (Pilgrim and Bledsoe, 2012); therefore, teacher preparation programs must…

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the mediational role of gesture and body movement/positioning between a teacher and an English language learner in a second-grade classroom. Responding to Thibault's (2011) call for understanding language through whole-body sense making, aspects of gesture and body positioning were analyzed for…

The aim of this study is to find out the effect of distance education applications based on smart board in teaching pattern preparation techniques and its contribution to students' achievement and skills. An experimental model with a pretest-posttest experimental and control group was used with 34 students who attended the department of Ready-Made…

This study explored teacher questioning as a formative assessment strategy by examining the practices of teachers of English as a Foreign Language in Chinese tertiary institutions. It investigated how teachers deployed questions to stimulate student thinking, uncover students' current level of learning, and allow responses to inform pedagogic…

We examined the practices, beliefs, and attitudes of secondary teachers in order to identify factors that led to success for non-dominant-group students. We found a unique paradigm among educators whose students of color and/or poverty showed no achievement gap. Rather than coming from a deficit perspective or one expecting assimilation, those…

Despite widespread calls for reform in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education, effecting lasting change in instructor practice is challenging to achieve. This article describes the results of a 2-yr research study that involved efforts to develop the pedagogical expertise of a group of anatomy and physiology…

In this study, Information Technologies teachers' views and usage cases on performance based assesment methods (PBAMs) are examined. It is aimed to find out which of the PBAMs are used frequently or not used, preference reasons of these methods and opinions about the applicability of them. Study is designed with the phenomenological design which…

Grounded in new language policy studies (McCarty, Collins, & Hopson, 2011), this qualitative study examines two bilingual Latina preschool teachers' language views, experiences, skills, and goals in a Texas/Mexico border community to determine how these factors mediate their choice to use Spanish/English in their instructional practices with…

Arguably, the benefits of open educational resources (OER) are greatest in low- and middle-income countries, where they have the potential to increase access to learning for those who may otherwise be excluded. However, for OER to be truly useful to educators and learners they need to be adapted to suit the contexts in which they are to be…

In this article, the evaluation of an online mentoring program for preparing pre-service elementary teachers at a small liberal arts college is described. An intervention was created to investigate the effects of online mentoring with preservice teachers, where mentoring is defined as a reciprocal relationship formed between an experienced teacher…