Digital safety involves protecting oneself, and one's personal information to mitigate the risks that are inherently associated with using digital technologies. This study employed a multi-method design to explore 26 inservice and preservice elementary teacher experiences from attending a professional development on digital safety and facilitating…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to gain insights from educational leaders who had participated in a larger study and received extensive practice-based professional development on an evidence-based practice, self-regulated strategy development for informative writing. The participants also previously implemented the self-regulated…

This study examines the perceptions of first-year, mathematics graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) participating in a six-week summer course designed to deepen their knowledge of collegiate mathematics teaching practices before being assigned to instruct undergraduate students in the subsequent fall semester. Through hybrid deductive-inductive…

Social, motivational, and instructional factors impact students' outcomes in STEM learning and their career paths. Based on prior research and expectancy-value theory, the study further explored how multiple factors affect students in the context of integrated STEM learning. High school STEM teachers participated in summer professional development…

The teacher shortage calls for innovative recruitment, development, and retention practices. This qualitative inquiry highlights the Academy for Future Teachers (AFT), a teacher-cadet program for high-schoolers interested in teaching. We endeavored to understand how the varied participants' in AFT (high schoolers, teacher residents, and master…

Many studies illustrate the positive influences of undergraduate research experiences on student learning, attitudes, and retention in the sciences. At our institution, over 90% of the biology majors surveyed reported a desire to participate in undergraduate research, but only 3% per year have the opportunity to work in a traditional…

We study an early effort amid the COVID-19 pandemic to develop new approaches to virtually serving students, supporting teachers, and promoting equity. This five-week, largely synchronous, summer program served 11,769 rising 4th-9th graders. "Mentor teachers" provided PD and videos of themselves teaching daily lessons to "partner…

Systematic studies on the effectiveness of in-service teacher professional development (PD) are important for science education research and practice. Previous studies have mostly focused on certain outcomes of PD, for example, the effectiveness of PD for improving teachers' knowledge or students' learning outcomes. This study, however, explores…

Although middle grades proponents call for specialist teacher preparation, and often herald student voice as critical to successful middle grades programs, young adolescents are rarely provided a role in teacher education. In this article, we explore the potential of student involvement in middle grades teacher education. We first briefly examine…

Framed with concepts from the literature on educational innovations, the present study explored postsecondary students' and instructors' evaluative comments about ACTFL's Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA). In the research on the IPA to date, few scholars have explored these key stakeholders' perceptions of the framework, and a robust…

This mixed methods research investigated the relationship between student and teacher perceptions of five motivational components of instruction--appeal, challenge, choice, meaningfulness, and academic self-efficacy--and how teachers' knowledge of their students' perceptions informed their reflection on the quality of instruction. The Student…

In 2013, with a 30% state budget cut after the Great Recession, many of the 450,000 California State University (CSU) students across the 23-campus system were unable to enroll in courses they needed to move closer to graduation; there was a lack of available course sections. In addition to a reduced number of seats available for students, 30% to…

Georgia Computes! ("GaComputes") was a six-year (2006-2012) project to improve computing education across the state of Georgia in the United States, funded by the National Science Foundation. The goal of GaComputes was to broaden participation in computing and especially to engage more members of underrepresented groups which includes…

A mixed-methods research study was designed to examine teachers' knowledge and confidence for implementing a STEM-based problem-based learning (PBL) unit in their 6-12 grade science and math classrooms. Twenty-one teachers (7 in-service and 13 pre-service) participated in an intensive two-week summer workshop during which they engaged in, and then…

The V-SPACE project equipped English teachers with iPads as tools to create and maintain virtual spaces for their students. Teachers learned effective ways to integrate technology with English content while strengthening technological knowledge and pedagogical skills. In a summer institute, 29 high school teachers were trained, using their iPads,…