This article describes and reflects upon efforts to generate greater support for media literacy and critical thinking within the strategies and programs of the Federal government in the early 1990s to about 2005 primarily among agencies with an interest in youth substance abuse prevention. Beginning with their personal reflections on discovering…

This article attempts to describe the creation and implementation of the first Professional Development School (PDS) model of teacher education in Panama. The authors set the context within brief histories of international education and PDSs and provide operational definitions of the critical terminology. To be sure, the scope and scale of the…

This article describes the changes and challenges that Competency-based education (CBE) has bought to the higher education arena. Cautions are being offered about the most prominent features of the version being promoted today, particularly its hyper-individualization. CBE's recent prominence is due to better technology, a friendly policy…

This study was concerned about cheating in written examinations at Midlands State University (MSU). The study revealed that both male and female students cheat in written examination; business studies students cheat more than other faculties, and younger (lower class) students cheat more than (upper class) older students. Factors influencing…

This paper highlights reciprocal teaching as an inclusive instructional strategy that has been shown to improve reading comprehension and metacognitive skills. It provides a conceptual background to reciprocal teaching and examines its purpose, strengths and weaknesses. The notion of reciprocal teaching as an evidence-based practice is also…

As Response to Intervention (RTI) models continue to be implemented, an important research question is how school psychologists are experiencing the transition to RTI practice. In order to better understand the experiences of school psychologists, interviews with seven practicing school psychologists regarding their perceptions of barriers and…

Students from farmworker families are often cited as having deficits that prohibit completion of undergraduate degree program. Statistics regarding graduates of the College Assistance Migrant Program in a southwestern university have shown graduation rates that are similar to the general population of graduates at that university. This qualitative…

Individuals who change careers to assume teaching roles in secondary schools are more likely to struggle in the classroom than those without such backgrounds. In this investigation, we identified three such career-changing teachers who were beginning their education careers in rural schools, and observed and interviewed them throughout their first…

This article describes how the physical educators at Tahoma High School, in a community in Washington state's Cascade Mountains, surveyed their students, reached out to the community, integrated physical education and academics, and established a school-wide focus on wellness. Tracy Krause writes that the three "Rs"--relationships,…

Universities are facing challenges in the area of student retention and graduation. A critical question is what schools can do to improve undergraduate students' intentions to complete college. Dropout intention has been studied, yet the exploration of college completion intention has not been thoroughly examined. Using structural equation…

While a quarter of all American students are enrolled in rural public schools, many rural teachers and administrators believe that education stakeholders are slow to fully recognize and address the unique challenges facing rural educators. This brief discusses recent steps taken by the federal government and individual states to address the…

In this report, the authors present some initial findings on the early implementation of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in California. They report on their interviews with educators in all regions of the state, and on their views of how implementation is proceeding in their schools and districts. The authors then review some of the key…

With more than 80% of institutions offering online learning options and even more using web technologies to enhance traditional classroom instruction, the learning management system (LMS) is increasingly an indispensable, enterprise-level technology for today's colleges and universities. Naturally, each institution has a unique set of…

This working paper sets out some of the early findings from a pilot project to explore the qualities that future-oriented teachers might need and how those qualities might be developed. The work began under a New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER) project called Back to the Future and is now part of a Teaching & Learning Research…

With persistent concerns about student engagement, interest and participation in mathematics, this research investigated the range of practices 31 Year 7 mathematics teachers reported using and how they perceived these practices influenced student engagement in mathematics. In-depth interviews revealed similarities in teachers' perceptions of…