An ongoing concern in higher education is the disjunction between how faculty teach and how students learn best. A primary objective of higher education is to produce content experts, which does not automatically translate to expert teachers of content. Lacking formal instruction on how to teach their content, faculty often teach in the same…

The significant benefits to students of working collaboratively with faculty, increasingly conceptualized as Students as Partners (SaP), and focused on aspects of teaching and learning through pedagogical partnerships, are well documented, yet these practices typically occur on a small scale. SaP practitioners and scholars have proposed SaP as a…

Experiential learning is a child-centered approach to education designed to minimize the role of authority, shift the power dynamic away from the teacher, and place children at the center in curriculum activities. In direct instruction, teachers play a leading role in constructing and delivering lessons to students. Direct instruction occurs when…

In today's context of schooling, most teaching is aimed at output, coverage, and high scores which is in direct contrast to what pre-service teachers are taught to cherish -- differentiation, academic choice, and student autonomy. However, there is an approach that shows promise in counteracting the tendency to over stress scores and undermine a…

This study addressed the problem of identifying challenges and expectations when a school transitions from traditional education to personalized learning. The single case study used semi-structured interviews to discover the experiences and thoughts of ten teachers and staff members from a rural high school that transitioned. The school was in its…

This study examines how teacher leaders across the Central Valley support the implementation of the English Language Roadmap Policy (ELRP) utilizing a qualitative, multi-case study approach. Relying on semi-structured interviews and a series of project presentations, this study examines teacher leaders' perceptions and identifies the attributes of…

The required literature (frequently referred to as "the canon") taught in the secondary English Language Arts curriculum often focuses on the "classics," which do not always connect to modern students or reflect their identities. This study sought to investigate how the ELA canon could be adapted to better reflect students'…

Recent K-12 science reforms necessitate a shift in curriculum and instruction to support coherence from the students' perspective. This coherence emerges when students see their science work as addressing and making progress on their questions and problems. Storyline curricular units afford student coherence, but teachers need support to craft…

Traditional, standardized instruction and assessment practices are insufficient to promote the development of skills such as critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication, which have been deemed necessary for post-secondary success (Darling-Hammond & Adamson, 2013; Milner, 2018; Rickles et al., 2019). They also serve to…

What is the work of an elementary teacher attempting to teach mathematics in ways that disrupt pervasive patterns of inequity and promote justice and success for children from historically marginalized groups? What problems or tensions arise at the beginning of the school year in pursuing these goals and seeking to build community in a…

An educational debt exists for Black and Latinx students with and without IEPs. This debt extends to underrepresentation in curricula and overrepresentation in special education. Identity representation in English Language Arts curricula offers promise to counter this existing educational debt as well as overrepresentation. This qualitative study…

Synthesis is one of the most cognitively demanding practices novice writers must undertake, and research demonstrates that first-year students' synthesis writing practices result in more knowledge "telling" rather than knowledge creation and transforming. Pedagogies used to teach synthesis often focus on developing text-building…

This qualitative research study sought to understand the affordances and limitations of a systemic functional linguistics (SFL) approach to teaching composition at the community college level. The study took place over the course of a semester in two developmental college composition classes using the language of SFL to teach writing through…

In this qualitative research study the researcher sought to identify effective elements of professional development that encourage technology adoption and purposeful technology integration by early elementary educators. Puentedura's (2014) Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, Redefinition (SAMR) model served as the framework for the…

Effective teaching techniques continue to be a point of contention among educators. What pedagogical techniques work well is dependent upon geography and student demographics. The purpose of this qualitative single case study was to assess border educators' perceptions in regard to effective teaching techniques while working in the borderlands.…