In the 2013-2014 school year, we implemented the "flipped classroom" as part of an initiative to drive active learning, student engagement and enhanced learning in our school. The flipped courses consisted of freshman through senior engineering classes in introductory programming, statics/mechanics, mechanical design, bio-thermodynamics,…

The purposes of this study were to (a) examine the degree to which teachers used linguistically responsive practices to support the language and literacy development of Spanish-speaking Dual Language Learners (DLL) and (b) to investigate the associations between these practices and select teacher-level factors. The sample consisted of 72 preschool…

Discourse features that promote the generation of interactionally modified input and output, such as negotiation for meaning, have been shown to significantly enhance second language acquisition. Research has also identified several characteristics of instructional practices that render them more or less propitious to the generation of these…

In this paper, the Classroom Learning Activities Checklist (CLAC) is proposed as a classroom observation measure that effectively captures the classroom environments and strategies that support self-regulation via task-oriented learning in young students. The CLAC's dimensionality, reliability, and concurrent and predictive validity evidence are…

Relatively little is known about the use of standardized physical education curricular models and teachers perceptions of and fidelity to such curricula. The purpose of this study was to examine teachers perceptions of and fidelity to a standardized physical education curricular model (i.e., Dynamic Physical Education [DPE]). Participants for this…

The primary aim of this study was to explore the relationship between teachers' instruction and students' vocabulary and comprehension in grades 3-5. The secondary aim of this study was to investigate whether this relationship differed for English monolingual and Spanish-English bilingual students. To meet these aims, we observed and…

This article reports on the development of online assessment tools for disengaged youth in flexible learning environments. Sociocultural theories of learning and assessment and Bourdieu's sociological concepts of capital and exchange were used to design a purpose-built content management system. This design experiment engaged participants in…

All teachers (N = 32) at one middle school participated in a university-led intervention to improve student engagement. Teachers discussed four principles of motivation and related instructional strategies. Teachers enacted instructional strategies in their classrooms. We observed six randomly selected teachers and their students over 3 years.…

Informally observing classrooms is one way that principals can help improve teaching and learning. This study describes the variability of principals' classroom observations across schools and identifies the conditions under which observations relate to the instructional climate in some schools and not others. Data for this study come from…

Special educators are required to collect data on student progress and use it as formative data to inform instructional decisions. Being told to collect student data without being shown how to effectively and efficiently collect it, may cause teachers to become overwhelmed. This article provides three easy-to-use templates to facilitate quick data…

Classroom observation protocols, in which observers rate multiple dimensions of teaching according to established protocols (either live in the classroom, or post-hoc from lesson videos), are increasingly being used in both research and policy contexts. However, scores generated from these protocols have many sources of error. Day to day variation…

German philosopher Martin Heidegger stirred educators when in 1951 he claimed teaching is more difficult than learning because teachers must "learn to let learn". However in the main he left the aphorism unexplained as part of a brief four-paragraph, less than two-page set of observations concerning the relationship of teaching to learning; and…

Using videos from 63 teachers in grades 4-8 who were part of the Measures of Effective Teaching study, we identified five tendencies in the teaching of reading comprehension that can inform future work on the design and implementation of reading instruction. The five tendencies are: (1) Instruction is generally text-centric, but dominated by…

Classroom observations are sometimes a challenging form of data collection. Not only are interpretations of those observations subject to the researcher's theoretical lens, but communication between the researcher and the teacher is often delayed until well after the observed events. This article reports research that focused on the pedagogical…

There is extensive evidence that active learning works better than a completely passive lecture. Despite this evidence, adoption of these evidence-based teaching practices remains low. In this paper, we offer one tool to help faculty members implement active learning. This tool identifies 21 readily implemented elements that have been shown to…