The purpose of this ethnographic study was to examine the relationship between focused keyboarding instruction and the required standardized assessments mandated by Federal and State authorities. Initial mandates required that the first assessment to be administered online would be the Writing Assessment by year 2014. The assessment given in…

The perceptions of Tennessee educators who successfully implemented blended learning in their classrooms were the main focus of this phenomenological study. Blended learning is a modality that uses stations which consist of a teacher-led station, an online station, and an off-line station. Teachers work in small groups with students while others…

In this essay, we discuss issues related to the integration of career exploration in our nation's middle schools. We discuss the theoretical and empirical basis for career exploration at the middle school level and identify selected barriers to its effective implementation, namely with regards to career advising and parent involvement. We also…

Interest in scaling up prekindergarten programs for children from low income families is dramatically increasing, especially with the announcement by President Obama of support for "universal preschool." Research in early education supports the idea of developmentally appropriate practice as reflected in instructional groupings and…

Deciding which instructional strategies to employ is a complex issue faced daily by middle school teachers. Although a wealth of literature on developmentally appropriate and responsive middle school instructional practices is available, the extent to which these strategies are employed is often unknown. Thus, the purpose of this study was to…

This research investigated the effects of two contrasting pre-k curricula, relative to practice as usual, on subsequent academic achievement. One curriculum had a strong literacy focus, the other was a less didactic "developmentally appropriate" curriculum that allowed children to have more influence on classroom activities. The purpose…

The purpose of this study was to determine if an association existed between student achievement scores and classroom practices used among third-grade teachers in Upper East Tennessee. The variables included classroom environment, instructional context, and social context, employing developmentally appropriate practices (DAP). Teacher…

These 12 newsletter issues provide support and information for providers of child care for school-age children. The featured articles for each month are: (1) "To Be a Caregiver Again"; (2) "When To Talk to Parents"; (3) "NSACA (National School-Age Care Alliance) Launches Accreditation Pilot"; (4) "A New Way of…

This final report describes the activities and outcomes of Project TIES (Towards Inclusion in Early Education), a federally funded demonstration model training program designed to enhance the abilities of child care providers and trainers to include young children, birth to five, with disabilities in developmentally appropriate child care…

Tennessee's Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio project (Project STAR) was designed to study the effects of class size on pupils in primary (K-3) grades. Responses of Project STAR teachers (N=1,003) to the annual Teacher Exit Interview are summarily reported for 1986 through 1989. Generally, the perceptions of teachers in small classes, in regular…