At the start of the 2023-2024 academic year, 15 college presidents from a diverse array of institutions came together to launch College Presidents for Civic Preparedness. They committed to advancing critical inquiry, free expression, and civil discourse on campuses across the country. By the end of the spring semester, their numbers had grown to…

Classroom discourse is critical to helping students learn mathematics. Interacting with peers and the teacher within a classroom community assists students in building their understanding of mathematical concepts. A discourse community, sometimes referred to as a math-talk learning community, is "a classroom community in which the teacher and…

Purpose: To investigate how an adventure-based activity could help facilitate dialogue and enable a safe process where students could engage in a difficult topic such as diversity without feeling threatened. Method: A qualitative study was used in which 89 social work students who took part in diversity training gave permission that their…

This paper describes the activities of a course on adult development. The course intended to sensitize participants to the theories and reality of adulthood and aging by introducing them to selected literature on adult development and to the preparation of case records and mastery of activities that permit an analysis of the adult's world. The…

The objective of this research is to develop a program for enhancing ideal desirable characteristic of basic school administrators. An in-depth interview was done with experts. The opinions of school administrators, assistant school administrators, and teachers as the chiefs of academic work were found out. A total of 330 persons participated in…

Using data in a professional learning community is a promising form of professional development. In this study, we followed a data team of teacher educators, who systematically tried to improve the education of student teachers (by decreasing first year drop-out). By conducting a single case study, we investigated the data team participants'…

Both "philosophy" and "the child" are notions that seem to have an everlasting presence in our daily vocabulary. What is less common and perhaps lacking is any reflection on the relation between them, which is rarely a focus of the researcher's attention. We believe that it is precisely this relation that is at stake in increasingly popular…

Learning communities are small pre-selected student groups based on a common interest with a variety of goals related to student outcomes. Previous research has shown robust effects of learning community participation on student success outcomes, but little is known about the mechanisms which may mediate these effects. The current study analyzed…

Queensborough Community College and Houston Community College are two large, urban institutions that offer learning communities for their developmental math students, with the goals of accelerating students' progress through the math sequence and of helping them to perform better in college and ultimately earn degrees or certificates. They are…

Queensborough Community College and Houston Community College are two large, urban institutions that offer learning communities for their developmental math students, with the goals of accelerating students' progress through the math sequence and of helping them to perform better in college and ultimately earn degrees or certificates. They are…

The widespread popularity of programs for first-year students is due, in large part, to studies showing that participation in first-year programs is significantly related to students' academic success. Because students choose to participate in first-year programs, self-selection effects prevent researchers from making causal claims about the…

In this discussion of professional learning communities (PLCs) in North American public schools, we examine three theoretical frames--leadership, organization, and culture. Issues related to learning are infused throughout our presentation of the frames. Based on our analysis of the current literature on this topic, PLCs offer a promising tool for…

In a school with a transparent data culture, frequent, low-stakes Data Conversations happen all the time. Although most schools engage in Data Conversations at times, there are some specific strategies and "listen-fors" that can assist educators in making these conversations more productive, such as developing a low-stakes set of…

This paper presents results from a rigorous random assignment study of Learning Communities programs operated at three of six community colleges participating in the National Center for Postsecondary Research's (NCPR) Learning Communities Demonstration. The demonstration's focus is on determining whether Learning Communities are an effective…

This article examines the role that professional experiences (practicum) can play in building resilience in pre-service teachers. In particular it focuses on a learning communities model of professional experience with its emphasis on relationships and its attention to the complex and dynamic interactions between individuals and their…