Prompted by changing demographics, economic pressures, and global competition, Texas and members of the Southern Regional Education Board adopted policies to boost minority enrollment and success in higher education around the turn of the century. This study draws upon IPEDS graduation rate data for a benchmark year, 2002, and for 2006 through…

Research on teacher stability typically focuses on the extent to which teachers remain in the same school, district, or the teaching profession from one year to the next. I investigate another facet of stability--whether teachers remain in the grade they teach. Drawing on administrative data from a large district in California, I find that high…

Questioning and discussion techniques are effective instructional methods, but there is often inconsistent implementation of these instructional methods. This case study explored teachers and evaluators' perceptions regarding exemplary questioning and discussion techniques. Participants included 9 teachers who earned exemplary marks on their…

Borrowing student loans can be confusing and intimidating, enough so that these feelings can influence how students go to college or whether they even enroll at all. Colleges have a responsibility to provide loan counseling to federal student loan borrowers--which, when done intently, can produce a potentially clarifying and empowering experience.…

This paper discusses Multi-Feature Hierarchical Sequential Pattern Mining, MFH-SPAM, a novel algorithm that efficiently extracts patterns from students' learning activity sequences. This algorithm extends an existing sequential pattern mining algorithm by dynamically selecting the level of specificity for hierarchically-defined features…

As science teacher educators attempt to prepare teachers to underscore the aims of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013) alongside the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (NGAC and CCSSO, 2010), they must pay close attention to the intersection of these two content areas. To address this challenge, the authors (a…

Assessing students at kindergarten entry allows teachers to effectively plan instruction that meets individual student needs, and those of the class as a whole. Maryland uses Ready for Kindergarten (R4K): Maryland's Comprehensive Early Childhood Assessment System, a single coordinated system for measuring the knowledge, skills, and behaviors and…

Conceptualizations of developmental trends are driven by the particular method used to analyze the period of change of interest. Various techniques exist to analyze developmental data, including individual growth curve analysis in observed and latent frameworks, cross-lagged regression to assess interrelations among variables, and multilevel…

While the potential benefits of participating in online learning communities are documented, so too are inequities in terms of how different populations access and use them. We present the online learning support roles (OLSR) framework, an approach using both automated analytics and qualitative interpretation to identify and explore online…

Due to poor student success rates in developmental mathematics, many institutions have implemented various forms of redesign into their developmental math curricula. Since the goal of redesign is to increase student success, it is salient to explore all aspects of the redesign process. Many studies have focused on the positive outcomes of redesign…

This study investigates Korean English teachers' responses to the current English Language Teaching (ELT) policies and reveals the attributes of their professional identity from their responses. Data collected from different narratives demonstrate that the teachers value the principles of communicative language teaching, but are not supportive of…

Class size reduction has been viewed as one school mechanism that can improve student achievement. Nonetheless, the literature has reported mixed findings about class size effects. We used 4th- and 8th-grade data from TIMSS 2003 and 2007 to examine the association between class size and mathematics achievement in public schools in Cyprus. We…

The purpose of this intrinsic case study was to explore four midwestern choral teachers' experiences of creating and sustaining community within their public school choirs. Research questions included (1) how choral teachers describe their experiences of creating choral communities, (2) how the teacher-student relationship is experienced, and (3)…

Student evaluation committees play a crucial role in internal quality assurance processes as representatives of the student body. However, the students on these committees sometimes experience difficulty in providing constructive and structured feedback to faculty in an environment characterised by a strong power differential between student and…

Although social skills have long been recognized as essential in promoting employees' employability (e.g., maintaining employment), there has been little research about work-related social skills for the last two decades. A systematic replication of Salzberg, Agran, and Lignugaris/Kraft's investigation of critical social skills was conducted.…