First-year teachers encounter many challenges throughout the beginning stages of their careers. One of those challenges relates to the navigation and implementation of district-mandated commercial literacy programs. When first-year teachers are expected to teach commercial literacy programs with fidelity, decisions about how to best implement the…

Educators and school staff are critical to recognizing and supporting students' mental health, but frequently do not have the training to confidently bring mental health literacy into the classroom or assist students who experience distress. Moreover, few free, easily accessible trainings are available for this audience. Classroom Well-being…

This ethnographic case study offers a description of an alternative teacher certification program within an HBCU-based teacher preparation program within Xavier University of Louisiana. The program is named the Norman C. Francis Teacher Residency Program (NCFTR). Data from the study offers insights from six in-service, alternative teaching…

Using Coarsened Exact Matching (CEM), this analysis examined the impact of Zearn Math across 7,116 matched pairs of students in 31 Louisiana parishes. Students who completed an average of 3+ Zearn Math lessons per week during the 2021-2022 school year were compared to similarly matched peers who completed less than 1 lesson per week. Findings…

Our methods to reach all students are no longer effective for the student body before us. Many students are struggling with stress, inattention in class, and absences from school. A significant number of our students are struggling to get to and stay in school. In addition to these issues, students are struggling to find relevance in their…

In "School Rethink 2.0," editors Frederick M. Hess, Michael B. Horn, and Juliet Squire gather leaders immersed in the nuts-and-bolts work of educational reinvention to present ten promising education improvements and ways to implement them. Contributors, including acclaimed education pioneers Sal Khan, Beth Rabbitt, and Larry Berger,…

The aim of the study is to comprehensively analyze the interrelationships between teacher efficacy, the sources of self-efficacy, and implementation of early childhood education (ECE). The assumption is that according to socio-cognitive theory, source categories predict the self-efficacy of educational staff. According to a few previous research…

This study works to assess the degree to which the impact of implementation of Mastery Learning can be described through teacher perception, academic achievement, and student growth. Elementary school teachers in a suburb in North Carolina implemented the Mastery Learning framework. The school's end-of-grade test scores were above state and…

This study explored how educational robotics (ER) was implemented in classrooms to foster creativity among elementary school students and identified challenges associated with its implementation. Twenty-six teachers at different elementary schools were interviewed. In-depth teacher interviews and grounded theory were used to collect and analyze…

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, K-12 schools are under immense pressure to meet the diverse needs of students. But policies and practices have not evolved quickly enough to meet those needs -- and as a result, the system continues to fail far too many young people. In "Levers of Change: How State Policies Support District…

Background: Vaping among American secondary students is increasing. School-based health education is well positioned to deliver messaging about the dangers of vaping and to develop refusal skills. CATCH My Breath (CMB) is an evidence-based vaping prevention curriculum that provides resources to create and sustain healthy behaviors. Given inherent…

While you may be ready to make the change to implementing Mastery Grading, you may still wonder exactly how to do this. This paper seeks to compile recommendations on implementing mastery grading from various sources as well as examples from our own experiences. The reader should expect a detailed overview of the components involved in mastery…

In "Demonstrating Student Mastery with Digital Badges and Portfolios," David Niguidula shows how students can meet standards and express their individuality through digital badges and portfolios. Building off an essential question--What do schools want their students to know and be able to do?--he then shows how schools can implement a…

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to investigate relationships between students' ALEKS usage, teachers' implementation of ALEKS, and student performance on the 2017-2018 LEAP 2025 mathematics assessment. The quantitative portion of the study involved district-level analyses and teacher-level analyses that explored relationships between…

In this paper we report a study in which we have developed a teaching cycle based closely on Bloom's Learning for Mastery (LFM). The teaching cycle ameliorates some of the practical problems with LFM by making use of the STACK online assessment system to provide automated assessment and feedback to students. We report a clinical trial of this…