An emerging trend toward computer-mediated collaborative learning environments promotes lively exchanges between learners in order to facilitate learning. Discourse can play an important role in enhancing epistemology, pedagogy, and assessments in these environments. In this paper, we highlight some of our recent work showing the advantages using…

Students today need advanced tools and competencies to succeed in the global economy. Technology can provide students with critical learning experiences but is often affordable only to affluent students. All students, regardless of socioeconomic status, deserve to use technology to create and innovate, communicate and collaborate, and gain the…

The National Association of School Nurses' research priorities include the recommendation that data reliability, quality, and availability be addressed to advance research in child and school health. However, identifying a national school nursing data set has remained a challenge for school nurses, school nursing leaders, school nurse professional…

Many scholars have concluded that teacher education research needs to take a complex view, resist simplification, and account more fully for teacher education's contexts and processes as well as its impact on teacher candidates' and school students' learning (Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005; Grossman & McDonald, 2008; Opfer & Pedder,…

The proliferation of digital information technologies and related infrastructure has given rise to novel ways of capturing, storing and analyzing data. In this paper, we describe the research and development of an information system called Interactive Knowledge Networks for Engineering Education Research (iKNEER). This system utilizes a framework…

"Game-Based Assessments: A Promising Way to Create Idiographic Perspectives" (Adrienne Walker and George Englehard) comments on: "How Task Features Impact Evidence from Assessments Embedded in Simulations and Games" by Russell G. Almond, Yoon Jeon Kim, Gertrudes Velasquez, and Valerie J. Shute. Here, Walker and Englehard write…

ChemEd X Data is an open web tool that collects and curates physical and chemical data of hundreds of substances. This tool allows students to navigate, select, and graphically represent data such as boiling and melting points, enthalpies of combustion, and heat capacities for hundreds of molecules. By doing so, students can independently identify…

In this paper, we explore the usefulness of three different approaches to facilitating reflexivity and a critical awareness of emerging academic identities for doctoral students. This paper stems from a longitudinal research project entitled "The Next Generation of Social Scientists", which was conducted across three research-intensive…

The Afterschool Alliance, in partnership with MetLife Foundation, is proud to present the final issue brief in their latest series of four issue briefs examining critical issues facing middle school youth and the vital role afterschool programs play in addressing these issues. This brief explores afterschool and data utilization to improve…

The purpose of this study was to describe how states in the REL Central Region (Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming) evaluate teacher preparation programs and planned changes for evaluation. Publicly available documents were reviewed and interviews were conducted with state education agency representatives…

As educators are increasingly called on to use data to inform improvement initiatives (and are being held accountable for doing so), there is a corresponding need for program leaders to monitor progress. Program monitoring--the systematic and continual observation and recording of key program aspects--can provide leaders with realistic assessments…

Listening closely to what students say about their school experiences can be beneficial to educators for understanding and addressing school-related topics and problems and rethinking policies and practices. The purpose of this toolkit is to provide educators with a purposeful and systematic way to elicit and listen to student voice to inform…

Background: Over the last 20 years, Uganda has piloted and implemented various management information systems (MIS) for better surveillance of HIV/AIDS. With support from the United States Government, Uganda introduced the District Health Information Software 2 (DHIS2) in 2012. However, districts have yet to fully adapt to this system given a…

This article describes an exciting exploration-based activity in which students develop an alternative definition of factor that can help them solve problems like the one presented above. Students work in groups to collect data, analyze the data to make conjectures, and then spend a significant amount of time debating and justifying their…

The use of video to assist with ethnographical-based research is not a new phenomenon. Recent advances in technology have reduced the costs and technical expertise required to use videos for gathering research data. Audio-visual records of learning activities as they take place, allow for many non-vocal and inter-personal communication…