Musical performances provide a rich context for studying complex spatial and embodied modes of group learning. This article proposes a framework for analyzing gesture in musical performances to highlight the ways musicians' movements reflect and promote their emerging and changing conceptions of a piece of music. The constructs of "expressive…

Student evaluations are a common source of information used by instructors and administrators, but their utility depends on students' motivation and attention. This paper presents evidence from two studies indicating that insufficient effort responding and lack of motivation may be problems in course evaluations. In the first study, approximately…

Challenges inherent to increasing student literacy are well-documented particularly in under performing schools. Those challenges increase in schools experiencing high staff turnover, high populations of English language learners, and greater poverty. In order to improve student learning in these communities there needs to be a comprehensive…

This paper empirically documents media portrayals of Australia's performance on the Program for the International Student Assessment (PISA), 2000-2014. We analyse newspaper articles from two national and eight metropolitan newspapers. This analysis demonstrates increased media coverage of PISA over the period in question. Our research data were…

Research conducted on the development of expressive performance capabilities suggests that children can learn to demonstrate expressiveness in their music-making. Expressivity includes musical interpretation, performance technique, and musical and personal creativity. This article examines creativity as an important component of musical…

Working with gifted pupils is a specific problem which differs from the work with other pupils. It wouldn't be correct if we say that working with talented pupils is the same with the general pedagogical work. Even though we accept the gifted students as a particular problem, it is not right to see them as a world in its own, divided from other…

The present study explored the utility of a widely used performance-based assessment of children's readiness skills as a kindergarten entry assessment. In a sample of 520 kindergarten students across 52 classrooms, we compared students' school readiness skills as assessed by teachers using Teaching Strategies GOLD (TS GOLD) to direct assessments…

Teachers leave the profession for reasons including lack of teacher preparation and inadequate mentorship. To better support candidates in the final stages of teacher preparation, a Pennsylvania state university partnership led a process to implement supports to enhance the mentoring process during teacher candidate's final field experience. This…

It is well established that beginning teachers need support to bridge the gap from college teacher preparation to the classroom setting (Fletcher & Strong, 2009; Wong, 2003). In fact, lack of support in this transition has been identified as a leading factor that causes beginning teachers to leave the profession at high rates early in their…

Research has shown that construction projects in Saudi Arabia have had a perceived poor performance for the past three decades, from 1970-2016. The Saudi construction industry relies on a Contractor Classification System (CCS) to determine contractors' capabilities, and prevent underperformance. Through this study, a survey was conducted among…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the specific factors teachers consider when assigning the grades they record on students' report cards. Data were gathered from 943 K-12 teachers from five school districts in a Southeastern state who completed the "Teachers' Grading Practices Survey." Analyses focused on how teachers weigh…

This qualitative case study focused on the effect of a system implementation upgrade on employees' job performance within a central administration department of a major research university in the Southern United States. Review of literature revealed a lack of a specific model or process for system implementation upgrades and its impact on…

Fewer are entering the profession of teaching in the 21st century, many are fleeing, and districts all over the country are having staffing crises (Podolsky, Kini, Bishop, & Darling- Hammond, 2016). Many teachers leave within the first five years (Podolsky et al., 2016). Comprehensive induction programs are a way to support novice teachers and…

In the study evaluated in this report, the authors asked what effect survey length has on student non-response rates to individual items on IDEA's "Diagnostic Feedback" (DF) and "Learning Essentials" (LE) forms. The approach was to analyze individual student ratings of classes contained in the 2015-2016 IDEA-CL database.…

Studies have indicated the importance of scaffolding in the problem-solving process, as well as the potential of integrating learning content into the troubleshooting tasks. However, few have explored in depth the learning process during troubleshooting via scaffolds while also taking students' cognitive load into account. To address this issue,…