U.S. public schools are required to establish policies ensuring that English language learners have equal access to "meaningful education." This demands that districts put into place mechanisms to determine student eligibility for specialized English language services. For the most states, this federal requirement is fulfilled through…

This paper looks at the importance of mechanisms that give formal recognition to vocational skills acquired through work-based learning and how such mechanisms might be developed. It describes how skill recognition can benefit individuals, employers and society as a whole, and identifies in which contexts skill recognition has the highest…

Recently there has been a resurgence of interest in competency-based education, a learning modality which is mastery-based, self-paced and focused on demonstrations of knowledge and skill rather than where or how they were attained (C-BEN, 2016; Cuckler, 2016; Tate & Klein-Collins, 2015; U.S. Department of Education, 2002). The face of higher…

The rising cost of tuition, increasing competition, and mounting student loan debt has caused educational leaders to rethink degree programs and resources for learners. As such, open educational resources, prior learning assessment, open degree plans, and competency-based learning have gained popularity in the field of higher education.…

There is growing research aimed at understanding the challenges international graduate students (IGSs) face in learning English and applying it to their academic studies in the United States. Most studies, however, focus solely on IGSs and English in the context of U.S. higher education, giving less attention to their experiences prior to entering…

This paper reports the results of a survey with 40 students enrolled in an Android Application Development course offered during the spring semester of 2013 and 2014. The course used App Inventor to build the apps and required students to have an introduction to programming course as a prerequisite. The survey asked for demographic information and…

This article presents a story about two school leaders in a large Southern California urban district who used skills developed in a university school leadership program to create rapport, empathy, and trust while leading through challenging situations and achieving actionable outcomes. In addition to developing relationships in support of…

Knowing an individual's geographic affiliation may be useful in evaluating a student's previous knowledge. To test this hypothesis, students in an online master's program were given presurveys to evaluate their previous knowledge in meteorology and geology, as well as geological and meteorological sense-of-place surveys.

In this study, I examine how using a writers' workshop model in mathematics creates a space for students to write about their mathematical thinking and problem solving and how their writing impacts instruction. This case study of one classroom with one teacher spanned 6 weeks and included 18 implementations of an adapted version of the Writers'…

Over the last two decades, many Australian universities have relaxed their selection requirements for mathematics-dependent degrees, shifting from hard prerequisites to assumed knowledge standards which provide students with an indication of the prior learning that is expected. This has been regarded by some as a positive move, since students who…

Background/Context: In response to a shortage of highly qualified teachers, states and school districts have enacted a number of policy innovations over the last two decades. While researchers have evaluated many of these reforms, little is known about the initial effectiveness of individuals with prior teaching assistant experience. We review…

Intelligent tutoring and personalization are considered as the two most important factors in the research of learning systems and environments. An effective tool that can be used to improve problem-solving ability is an Intelligent Tutoring System which is capable of mimicking a human tutor's actions in implementing a one-to-one personalized and…

This study describes teacher learning in a teaching experiment consisting of a content-focused methods course involving the mathematical knowledge for teaching function. Prospective and practicing teachers in the course showed growth in their ability to define function, to provide examples of functions and link them to the definition, in the…

This study, involving the modification, validation and use of a learning environment questionnaire for both kindergarten students and their parents, is significant because prior learning environment research has normally involved neither parents nor such young students. A questionnaire, which was based on the What Is Happening In this Class? and…

Studies show that children trust previously reliable sources over previously unreliable ones (e.g., Koenig, Clement, & Harris, 2004). However, it is unclear from these studies whether children rely on accuracy or conventionality to determine the reliability and, ultimately, the trustworthiness of a particular source. In the current study, 3- and…