In response to Act 54 of the 2010 Regular Session, the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) engaged internal and external groups through pilot programs, presentations, workgroups, and focus groups to collectively develop and refine the educator support and evaluation program and the Louisiana value-added model (VAM). This collaborative effort…

Background: The US is facing a youth mental health crisis. The Icelandic prevention model (IPM) may represent one promising way to address it. This paper describes using the IPM to promote youth mental health, with special attention given to the guiding principle of "embracing public schools as the natural hub of community efforts to support…

In education, the concept of 'thinking skills' has long been contentious. This article revisits the 2010 debate between Stephen Johnson and Harvey Siegel on whether thinking can be taught as a general skill. To weigh in on this ongoing dispute, it contributes a novel perspective by augmenting key insights from 4E cognition to avoid treating…

The aim of this study is to investigate the production and dissemination of mathematical modeling-based projects by gifted students, intended to solve real-life problems, over the four-year Project Production and Management Program (PPMP). The longitudinal research methodology was utilized to examine the project production process among…

Decision makers and strategy leaders in states often lack the information they need to make decisions that will support learners' success. Many lack information on what data their states already collect and publicize, and many are unsure of what data might tell a more meaningful story about student success. Responding to this need, researchers and…

MoleculeCrafter is a novel tool that facilitates the custom creation of flexible and modular macromolecular model kits. These models support student chemical education by providing a manipulable and visuospatial tool to facilitate exploration of chemical structures and their interactions. Here, for the first time, we demonstrate using…

The Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) is the world's largest international survey of teachers and principals. In 2024, TALIS added the Teacher Knowledge Survey (TKS), a special module to investigate teachers' general pedagogical knowledge (GPK). GPK is the specialised knowledge of teachers for creating effective teaching and…

Human and animal behaviors are influenced by goal-directed planning or automatic habitual choices. Reinforcement learning (RL) models propose two distinct learning strategies: a model-based strategy, which is more flexible but computationally demanding, and a model-free strategy is less flexible yet computationally efficient. In the current RL…

Purpose: This study employs a comprehensive theoretical synthesis and literature review methodology to examine the evolution and current state of the professional zone of acceptance (PZoA) in educational leadership. Design/methodology/approach: Building upon the foundational theories of Barnard and Simon, the research develops a dynamic model that…

It is common for school support service (SSS) personnel to work in silos and not collaboratively. Logistics and availability of space continue to pose a challenge for interdisciplinary work. We offer the conceptual CCAMS model that proposes centralizing these support services (i.e., school counselor, social worker, psychologist) in one physical…

This literature review aims to characterise mediation practices in non-formal science education settings (zoos, aquariums, botanical gardens, science centres and museums) based on empirical studies published in the last 15 years and to evaluate their potential in providing visitors with an equitable and inclusive experience, considering their…

Mathematics provides us with tools to capture and explain phenomena in everyday biology, even at the nanoscale. The most regularly applied technique to biology is differential equations. In this article, we seek to present how differential equation models of biological phenomena, particularly the flow through ion channels, can be used to motivate…

Adjusting the Calculus I curriculum by putting modelling and differential equations literally at its centre leads to a better-organised and better-motivated course. The biggest change is including a section on "qualitative" and "numerical" solutions to ordinary differential equations between the customary sections on…

In this paper, we discuss how a professor could have students, using rational and exponential functions, develop models for several different density-dependent populations based on characteristics of the species. Students would then need to choose an appropriate method from among three different analytic methods (find a solution, phase-line…

In this article, we discuss the methodological implications of data and theory integration for Theory-Based Evaluation (TBE). TBE is a family of approaches to program evaluation that use program theories as instruments to answer questions about whether, how, and why a program works. Some of the groundwork about TBE has expressed the idea that a…