California's Kindergarten Readiness Act of 2010 established transitional kindergarten (TK), the first year of a two-year kindergarten program for students affected by the change in the birthdate cutoff for entry into kindergarten from December 2 to September 1. This brief, the sixth in a series highlighting findings from the "Study of…

Teachers wishing to apply constructivist theories to P-12 pedagogy must skillfully move between student knowledge constructions and powerful disciplinary knowledge and discourses. Although the gulf between these two ways of knowing varies markedly by discipline, constructivist methods are often taught as if they can be applied uniformly across all…

As part of a mixed-methods doctoral project, this study drew on an interview, bracketed by two surveys, with experienced Australian reviewers. It explored questions about the contributions of peer review, the need and possibility to improve it and the driving factors for reviewers to contribute voluntarily. The respondents emphasised the essential…

The importance of education in developing morally sensitive individuals who use principled moral reasoning when facing dilemmas has been widely acknowledged. In the context of the criticism levelled at the Irish higher education system for failing to fulfil the role of intellectual leader and moral critic within the public domain, this paper…

Background: School climate is a heterogeneous concept with a multitude of standardised and validated instruments available to measure it. Purpose: This overview of measurement scales aims to provide researchers with short summaries of some of the self-report instruments in existence, especially in relation to the link between school climate and…

In the United States, students with disabilities are disproportionately exposed to exclusionary discipline. Using Intergroup Threat Theory, literature was analyzed to identify expressed perceptions from school administrators that indicated perceived threat. Analysis revealed perceived threats to administrator beliefs, values, job performance, and…

Providing a safe classroom and laboratory environment should be the first priority of any career-technical and technology/engineering education instructor. Doing so not only increases the opportunity for student learning, but it also keeps instructors "out of hot water" with respect to legal issues of liability. In today's litigious…

This paper examines the relationships between the elements of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework, disciplinary differences, perceived learning, instructor effectiveness, and delivery medium satisfaction. Specifically, the proposed research examines whether disciplinary differences such as those proposed by Biglan (1973a, 1973b) moderate the…

Numerous studies have proposed and implemented various innovative designs of mobile learning practices, and several pedagogical affordances of mobile technologies in different subject domains have also been suggested. This study proposes a notion for helping instructors design an innovative mobile learning practice in their subject domain. The…

A recent national curriculum guide for upper secondary schools in my home country, Iceland, requires secondary schools to work towards equality and five other overarching aims. This requirement raises questions about to what extent secondary schools have to change their curricula in order to approach these aims or work towards them in an adequate…

Suspension from school removes students from the educational environment and interferes with school progress by decreasing prospects of gaining academic and social skills. Suspension also negatively affects school attendance and is an indicator of future disciplinary problems. To address problem behaviors that can lead to school suspensions,…

This report from the Alliance finds that schools that struggle most with providing a positive school climate more often disproportionately serve students of color and low-income students. It also confirms that students of color and students from low-income families are less likely to have access to rigorous course work and experienced teachers,…

States are implementing performance programs to help reform compensation systems for teachers; however, little is known on teachers' perception on alternative pay plans. Accordingly, this research study examined the types of pay-for-performance programs Georgia teachers prefer by exploring their perceptions of pay for individual performance, pay…

Using the Beginning Postsecondary Student Survey and Transcript Data, we find no statistically significant differential return to certificate or Associate's degrees between for-profits and not-for-profits. Point estimates suggest a slightly lower return to a for-profit certificate and a slightly higher return to a for-profit Associate's degree,…

Maryland recently raised its compulsory school attendance age from 16 to 18 in two stages: from 16 to 17 at the beginning of the 2014-15 school year and from 17 to 18 at the beginning of the 2016-17 school year (Maryland Senate Bill 362, 2012). The Maryland State Department of Education, a member of Regional Educational Laboratory Mid-Atlantic's…