The mission of the Palau Ministry of Education is to ensure that their students will be successful in Palauan society and the world. Schools are the heart of Palau's communities, reflecting the rich culture of the nation. They incorporate a unique blend of traditional values and modern methodologies to support learning for the diverse and…

Faculty professional development is an important lever for change in supporting instructors to adopt research-based instructional strategies that engage students intellectually, foster learning-supportive attitudes and habits of mind, and strengthen their persistence in mathematics. Yet the literature contains few well-rationalized models for…

The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) has created an open-access classroom observation tool based on research conducted for the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's (DFAT) Teacher Development Multi-Year Study Series, which studied teaching practices in Timor-Leste, Vanuatu and Lao PDR (see…

The technical barriers to video production are decreasing and the popularity of video as an instructional medium in science is increasing. Although a large body of education research is available to inform the selection and design of instructional videos, this research is dispersed across journals, disciplinary traditions, and STEM fields, and the…

Emily Nordmann's primary work has been guidance for how to use lecture recordings effectively for staff and students. This involved a peer-reviewed publication (Nordmann et al., 2020) and a set of infographic guides that have been adopted at institutions internationally. This work also led to the development of a generic course that teaches study…

Reading comprehension is the ultimate goal of learning to read, as the understanding of text is at the root of the purpose for reading, whether reading for pleasure or reading to learn. At-home reading practices can vary widely family to family -- some families have the knowledge and resources to read effectively with their children, while others…

In order to best serve students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), teachers and other in-school support personnel need to identify and effectively implement evidence-based practices (EBPs) in their classrooms. One EBP for students with ASD is video-based instruction, including video prompting, a form of video modeling. The authors provide…

Teacher professional learning is often disjointed and not aligned with the curricula teachers use in daily instruction. This lack of preparation has led to fragmented approaches to teaching young students to read, in part because initiatives lose momentum, teachers modify the instruction beyond recognition, and programs are soon eclipsed by newer…

Visual supports are content provided in a visual manner that help people to navigate and/or make sense of the world around them. The use of visual supports has been identified as an evidence-based practice (EBP), with evidence of its effectiveness when used to address challenging behavior, school readiness outcomes, joint attention outcomes, or…

Although young children benefit from early learning environments, many children with developmental delay struggle to meaningfully interact, engage, participate in daily routines and activities, and learn new social skills without direct support from evidence-based interventions (EBI), activity-based instruction, or Division for Early Childhood of…

Teachers of psychology have been called to both educate college students about interpersonal violence (e.g., sexual assault) and use service learning. However, few models exist for how teachers may simultaneously address both of these calls. This article describes a service-learning course in psychology that integrated an evidence-based, bystander…

In this digital ITEMS module, Nikole Gregg and Dr. Brian Leventhal discuss strategies to ensure data visualizations achieve graphical excellence. Data visualizations are commonly used by measurement professionals to communicate results to examinees, the public, educators, and other stakeholders. To do so effectively, it is important that these…

Social development is one of the most critical developmental areas for human beings. Deficits in social skills may negatively impact several essential domains including academic achievement, interpersonal relationships, behavior, mental health, and adult life outcome. Individuals with autism present with core deficits in social skills. Without…

Although the benefits of using video as a learning tool in Extension programs are well known, less is understood about effective methods for creating videos. We present a five-step procedure for developing educational videos that focus on evidence-based practices, and we provide practical examples from our use of the five steps in creating a video…

International students outperform U.S. students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), while U.S. students increasingly leave these high-demand areas. To improve STEM education, it is imperative to determine the most effective and efficient instructional and organizational practices in these courses. This article identifies…