Project-Based Learning (PBL) is a teaching method in which students learn by actively engaging in real-world, personally meaningful projects that allow conceptual transformation to occur within the educational process while fostering intellectual curiosity in a supportive learning environment. PBL supports students developing deep content…

Examining the connections among teacher characteristics, instructional decision-making, and student learning in social studies education are both complicated and contentious. In the current study, we shed light on middle grades social studies teaching and learning--a black hole of research in the subject area. Using data from the National…

This article presents findings from a large-scale curriculum development, quasi-experimental study. Participating teachers implemented four U.S. history units in their diverse middle-grade classes; these units were developed to engage underachieving students in challenging history and democratic citizenship curriculum and instruction featuring…

"Learning progressions" are one of the most important assessment design ideas to be introduced in the past decade. In the United States, several committees of the National Research Council (NRC) have argued for the use of learning progressions as a means to foster both deeper mastery of subject-matter content and higher level reasoning…

Reviews developments in geography education since World War II. Finds reasons for cautious optimism as a result of the development of national standards in core curriculum subjects and earlier efforts by the Geography Education National Implementation Project. (CFR)

Argues for placing art education at the center of a radically reconstituted liberal arts curriculum. This curriculum would elevate aesthetic education (music, dance, art) to the same level as the more traditional subjects. Calls for a thorough integration of these subjects with an emphasis on experiential learning. (MJP)