The climate, being a complex system, is difficult for people to understand. If better education is to be designed to improve the public's understanding of the subject, educators must be aware of the prior knowledge that students bring with them to the classroom since it is through that prism that people make sense of the world. As such, the aim of…

Learning mathematics is problematic for most primary school age children because mathematics is rote and the memorization of steps rather than an approach to seeing relationships that builds inquiry and understanding. Therefore, the traditional "algorithmic" way of teaching mathematics has not fully prepared students to be critical…

There is no doubt that teachers' knowledge and beliefs play a significant role in shaping how students learn mathematics. Nevertheless, research regarding the knowledge and beliefs of preservice teachers, including the cultural dimension, is very limited (Xenofontos & Andrews, 2012). The purpose of this study is to investigate the similarities…

Video games are a growing multi-billion dollar industry. Pew Internet & American Life Project (2008) reported that 97 percent of teens ages 12 to 17 years play computer, web, portable, or console games. Of the various genres that were reported, 36 percent of teens played role playing games and 21 percent played massively multiplayer online…

The purpose of this study was to understand the relationship between teacher discourse around social norms, student mathematical roles, and student mathematical explanations in the classroom. Mathematical explanations are important for learning mathematics and professional organizations encourage their use in the classroom. This study sought to…

21st Century skills such as critical-thinking and problem-solving skills are very important when it comes to Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics or STEM. But those same skills should be integrated in social studies. The impact of students' learning in social studies as a result of implementing inquiry-based instructional strategies was…

Epistemic beliefs are individuals' beliefs about the nature of knowledge, how knowledge is constructed, and how knowledge can be justified. This study employed a mixed-methods approach to examine: (a) middle and high school students' self-reported epistemic beliefs (quantitative) and epistemic beliefs revealed from practice (qualitative) during a…

Using the Gap Analysis problem-solving framework (Clark & Estes, 2008), this project examined collaboration around student achievement at the school site leadership level in the Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD). This project is one of three concurrent studies focused on collaboration around student achievement in the PUSD that include…

The purpose of this study was to identify the perceptions of elementary school principals in Southeastern Virginia regarding implementation of 21st century skills. The Partnership for 21st Century Learning Skills framework was used as a foundation to identify the skills needed for the 21st century. In addition, the framework was used to examine…

The development of expertise in writing is a complex but important achievement for young children as they become literate. Writing is a critical component of literacy development, yet there are few accounts of change over time in early writing development that attend to both changes in writing behaviors, the complexity of written messages, and the…

This project applied the gap analysis problem-solving framework (Clark & Estes, 2008) in order to help develop strategies to increase completion rates at Travelor Adult School. The purpose of the study was to identify whether the knowledge, motivation and organization barriers were contributing to the identified gap. A mixed method approached…

Using the Gap Analysis problem-solving framework (Clark & Estes, 2008), this study examined collaboration around student achievement at the central office leadership level in the Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD). This study is one of three concurrent studies focused on collaboration around student achievement in the PUSD that include…

Using the Gap Analysis problem-solving framework (Clark & Estes, 2008), this project examined collaboration around student achievement in the Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD) from the teacher perspective. As part of a tri-level study, two other projects examined collaboration around student achievement in PUSD from the perspectives of…

Students experience difficulty learning and understanding chemistry at higher levels, often because of cognitive biases stemming from common sense reasoning constraints. These constraints can be divided into two categories: assumptions (beliefs held about the world around us) and heuristics (the reasoning strategies or rules used to build…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify and describe strategies used by public school superintendents and local teacher union presidents to foster and maintain collaborative relationships. Methodology: The participants in the present study were 10 California public school superintendents and 10 local teacher union presidents purposively…