Since 1998, the Iowa Department of Education's Division of Community Colleges and Workforce Preparation (division) has compiled and published "The Annual Condition of Iowa's Community Colleges," commonly known as the "Condition Report." The intent of this report is to provide clear, objective data about Iowa's community…

If educators want to engage girls in learning, they must align teaching practices with girls' specific needs. In a study modeled after Reichert and Hawley's study of boys, the authors learned that lessons with hands-on learning, elements of creativity, multimodal projects, and class discussions all worked to stimulate girls'…

Since 1998, the Iowa Department of Education's Division of Community Colleges and Workforce Preparation (division) has compiled and published "The Annual Condition of Iowa's Community Colleges," commonly known as the "Condition Report." The intent of this report is to provide clear, objective data about Iowa's community…

Recognizing the importance of both keeping middle school students engaged and improving their math skills, Baltimore City Public Schools (City Schools) developed a summer school STEM program involving not only math and science instruction but also the experience of building a robot and competing with those robots in a city-wide tournament.…

This Afterschool Alert Issue Brief explores how afterschool programs are offering innovative, hands-on computing and engineering education opportunities. Both these subjects have emerged as priority areas within the "STEM" fields. Computing is one of the fastest growing industries, and yet current rates of college graduation in computer…

Facilitating the reflection upon outdoor and adventure experiences is a common practice for many leaders and instructors. This article draws upon visual semiotics to provide reflections upon three images from books that originate from within the dominant North American paradigm. These musings are from one Antipodean's perspective, who may see the…

Teachers and researchers work hard to discover the most effective ways of teaching mathematics in the primary classroom. When searching for new tasks to teach or ways to adapt a task to fit the class's profile, they often "phone a friend," drawing on the know-how and knowledge of colleagues and experts. Other articles in this issue…

This article uses Paulo Freire's problem-posing method, youth participatory action research, and case study methodology to introduce an alternative instructional strategy called Critical Hip Hop Pedagogy (CHHP). This approach attempts to address deep-rooted ideologies to social inequities by creating a space in teacher education courses for…

This chapter takes the somewhat unorthodox stance that the central purpose of an introductory political science course is not to prepare students for future political science courses but rather to prepare them for a lifetime of democratic citizenship. It suggests that the way to do this is not by primarily teaching content but by offering…

In a changing society there is considerable interest in developing and systematising people's lifelong learning and in relating this to workplace performance. In Brazil, there has been a growing emphasis on researching and developing basic education and vocational courses from the perspective of active citizenship. This point of view informs this…

Hierarchical linear modeling (HIM) is an approach used in data analysis to better understand how program outcomes are affected by the "nested" nature of data collected in many studies. An outcome can be considered variables such as an individual's self-efficacy, social skills, or more targeted outcomes such as demonstrated reading and mathematical…

"Every Child" is Australia's premier early childhood publication, aimed at anyone involved in the care and education of children from birth to eight years--in particular child care professionals, teachers, child care students and the parents of young children. Published quarterly, it contains informative and entertaining articles on such…