In this month's interview, Kappan's editor talks with high school English teacher and researcher Lisa Scherff about the ongoing struggle over who gets to define the English language arts curriculum. Dating back to the creation of the subject area, more than a century ago, classroom teachers have advocated for a varied course of study that helps…

The purpose of this case study research was to understand the ways in which an innovative, urban secondary English teacher (Ms. B) approached English Language Arts, when a set, standardized curriculum and testing were in place. The Common Core standards were prescribed within a required module-based presentation format. New literacies pedagogy…

Using interview data from secondary teachers, this study examines conflicting perspectives on the effects of the new national curriculum in South Korea, which was intended to grant more autonomy to individual schools and teachers. Contrary to the general belief that teachers want more autonomy to customize their curricula to meet students' needs,…

Community development research suggests that positive partnerships and connections between groups can result in stronger, more resilient and productive communities. Despite community connections featuring increasingly at a curriculum level in countries such as Australia and New Zealand, research is only beginning to explore the nuanced processes…

An account is presented of how schools in Hong Kong have responded to major changes to the official writing curriculum, from the highly structured, whole-class approach which predominantly involved all students in the class painstakingly learning written script and modeling their writing on carefully chosen examples of traditional writing, to an…

An interdisciplinary subject, liberal studies, was introduced as a compulsory and core subject into the New Senior Secondary Curriculum in Hong Kong in 2009 with the purpose of expanding students' knowledge base and increasing their social awareness through investigation into a variety of issues. However, transforming curricular innovations into…

The research reported on here is part of a larger study exploring the alignment of the intended, implemented and attained curriculum with regard to practical work in the Zimbabwean A-level Biology curriculum. In this paper we focus on the alignment between the intended and implemented A-Level Biology curriculum through the lens of teachers'…

This study examines the ways in which Saudi teachers have responded or are responding to the challenges posed by a new curriculum. It also deals with issues relating to workload demands which affect teachers' performance when they apply a new curriculum in a Saudi Arabian secondary school. In addition, problems such as scheduling and sharing space…

In many cases, political circumstances do not allow formal for transitional justice processes to occur in countries undergoing a transition from a violent past. In this paper, we ask if education can become a default front line of transitional justice work in the absence of explicit action by the state to address past injustices. Drawing from…

Carbon cycling is a key natural system that requires robust science literacy to understand how and why climate change is occurring. Studies show that students tend to compartmentalize carbon movement within plants and animals and are challenged to make sense of how carbon cycles on a global scale. Studies also show that students hold faulty models…

The aim of this explorative study was to develop and test a pedagogy aimed at promoting students' ability to perform historical contextualization. Teaching historical contextualization was conceptualized in terms of four pedagogical design principles: (1) making students aware of the consequences of a present-oriented perspective when examining…

The aim of this study was to identify the content of secondary Science curriculum excluded in teaching and learning activities, the reasons behind the omission and its impact on students' learning in the context of Bangladesh. This study used qualitative methodology. Eight teachers were selected and interviewed to investigate what they excluded…

The Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) highlight the importance of students' conceptual understanding, mathematical reasoning, and problem solving in order to prepare students for college and careers. However, the success of this reform effort largely depends on how teachers actually design and implement instruction based on the…

Games and digital media experiences permeate the lives of youth. Researchers have argued the participatory attributes and cognitive benefits of gaming and media production for more than a decade, relying on socio-cultural theory to bolster their claims. Only recently have large-scale efforts ensued towards moving game play and design into formal…

The new Advanced Placement (AP) Computer Science (CS) Principles course increases the need for quality CS teachers and thus the need for professional development (PD). This article presents the results of a 2-year study investigating how teachers teaching the AP CS Principles course for the first time used online PD material. Our results showed…