In this qualitative case study, we draw from a larger, federally funded, multiyear study focused on preparing teachers to work with English language learners, which includes an increasing population of refugee background students. We report on the experiences and perspectives of two experienced upper elementary teachers teaching in a magnet school…

As part of the program evaluation under the newly revised "Texas State Plan for the Education of Gifted/Talented Students" (Texas Education Agency, 2019), the Department of Research and Accountability conducted surveys of students, teachers, and parents to establish a baseline about perceptions of the G/T Program and collect formative…

The real power of calculus is revealed when it is applied to actual physical problems. In this paper, we present a calculus inspired physics experiment suitable for high school and undergraduate programs. A model for the theory of the terminal velocity of a falling body subject to a resistive force is developed and its validity tested in an…

This paper reports a simple magnetically driven oscillator, designed and resolved in order to achieve a better student understanding and to overcome certain instructional difficulties. The apparatus is mainly comprised of an ordinary spring pendulum with a neodymium magnet attached to the bottom, a coil placed in the same vertical direction, an…

The purpose of this qualitative, explanatory case study was to describe how traditional, magnet, and charter school principals in one Delaware school district responded to an environment of total school choice and how they made sense of their roles as a principal in the era of school choice. Hess's (2010) organizational theory was the theoretical…

Gender equity issues remain a challenge in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, where women are highly underrepresented. As integrated STEM instruction becomes increasingly popular in elementary and middle school classrooms, it is important to consider whether the small group activities that are commonplace in STEM…

Situated within scholarly research on tracking, within-school racial segregation, and student career aspirations, this qualitative study examines how three Black students in the mainstream program at a magnet high school in the Southeastern United States discussed their career aspirations. Results indicate that while each participant aspired to…

We examine the views of low-income urban parents toward their neighborhood school. Policymakers must understand the attitudes of these individuals, particularly because they represent some of the most vulnerable groups in our education system. As national education policies have made it easier for parents to choose schools, attention has…

In physics education research (PER), concept inventories (CIs) have become standard instruments for assessing students' learning throughout instruction. To promote widespread use of concept inventories, previous studies have developed an approach to split a full length CI into short versions of CIs. This research extends the existing method to…

Sixty-five years after the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, the federal and judicial role in school desegregation has declined. In a more difficult political and legal environment, it has fallen on school districts to develop and implement voluntary integration plans through diversity-minded student assignment…

In the context of the recent re-start of CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the challenge presented by unidentified falling objects (UFOs), we seek to facilitate the introduction of high energy physics in the classroom. Therefore, this paper provides an overview of the LHC and its operation, highlighting existing education resources, and…

In this paper, we propose an experiment for analysing harmonic motion using an iPhone's (or iPad's) magnetometer. This experiment consists of the detection of magnetic field variations obtained from an iPhone's magnetometer sensor. A graph of harmonic motion is directly displayed on the iPhone's screen using the "Sensor Kinetics"…

A new simple arrangement how to demonstrate diamagnetic levitation is presented. It uses pencil lead levitating in a track built from neodymium magnets. This arrangement can also be used as a classroom experiment.

The typical friction lab performed in introductory mechanics courses is usually not the favorite of either the student or the instructor. The measurements are not all that easy to make, and reproducibility is usually a troublesome issue. This paper describes the augmentation of such a friction lab with a study of the viscous drag on a magnet…

We reply to Rieger, Reinsberg, and Wieman's forgoing Comment [Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res., Comment on "Benefits of completing homework for students with different aptitudes in an introductory electricity and magnetism course" 12, 028001 (2016)].