Would anyone in your network be aware of any states that might provide differentiated funding for virtual programs based on the model used--for example, curriculum-in-a-box vs. one with high student-teacher interaction? Are you aware of any research that examines what factors to consider when developing this type of differentiated funding? This…

Students of color in low-income schools are 3 to 10 times more likely to have unqualified teachers than students in predominantly White schools. These disparities in teacher distribution matter greatly: Research consistently shows that teacher quality is one of the most important variables for student success and that teachers with stronger…

The study examined family supports after identification of children's hearing loss. On a questionnaire, 456 respondents rated the importance of different aspects of family support, the quality of supports they experienced, and their preferences about informational resources. They verified the importance of informational resources, social-emotional…

Communicating and collaborating online are becoming common requirements in education. The specialized notations and symbols necessary for some content areas where mathematical expressions are part of the conversation require that users select appropriate communication tools. The purpose of this article is to describe tools that can be used for…

This article estimates the effects of school expenditure on school performance at Key Stage 4 in England, over the period 2003-07 during which real per pupil expenditure increased rapidly. It adds to previous investigations by using dynamic panel analysis to: exploit time series data on individual schools that only recently has become available;…

There has been a paucity of research on the experiences of students at Pakistani universities. A survey of over 900 students at two universities examined their approaches to studying and perceptions of their courses. Evidence was obtained for a deep approach, a surface approach and two aspects of a strategic approach. Their perceptions were based…

This article continues a fairly recent trend of research examining the teaching practice of university mathematics lecturers. A lecturer's pedagogical practices in a course in linear algebra were discussed via a supportive community of inquiry. We use Schoenfeld's framework describing the relationship of resources, orientations and goals to…

The instructional potential of video technology in the classroom is promising, especially in light of the 21st Century Learning Framework (Siegle, 2009). Studies show positive gains in student outcomes as a result of the integration of video technology in instruction. This article explores potential uses of YouTube as an instructional aid in…

The continuously growth of learning resources available in on-line repositories has raised the concern for the development of automated methods for quality assessment. The current existence of on-line evaluations in such repositories has opened the possibility of searching for statistical profiles of highly-rated resources that can be used as…

A rubric is a scoring guide that consists of specific pre-established performance criteria, used for evaluating students' work. iRubric is a comprehensive digital rubric development, assessment, and sharing tool that shows the major skills and sub-skills to be mastered, the different mastery levels, and marks allocated to each level. This article…

Enriching and supplementing storytelling programs with fingerplays, flannelboards, and other props will be a cinch thanks to this generous sampling of art and craft ideas, songs, and action rhymes. This time-saving resource includes: (1) Thematic organization to make program planning easy; (2) Recommended books for each theme; (3) Easy-to-follow…

The Isis problem, which has a link with the Isis cult of ancient Egypt, asks: "Find which rectangles with sides of integral length (in some unit) have area and perimeter (numerically) equal, and prove the result." Since the solution requires minimal technical mathematics, the problem is accessible to a wide range of students. Further, it is…

The effective teaching of fire investigation skills presents logistical challenges because of the difficulty of providing students with access to suitable fire damaged buildings so that they can undertake authentic investigation tasks. At Charles Sturt University (CSU), in the subject JST415, "Fire Investigation Cause and Origin…

Wikis are great tools to help a school enrich instruction, and increase communication and collaboration among staff. They are also free (for educators using wikispaces) and provide unlimited storage for digital materials including video, screencasts, presentations, PDFs, etc. This article presents eight ways to use wikis in class.

There is growing discussion among education and government authorities on rethinking education in the 21st century. This increasing area of interest has come in response to the evolution of technology and its effect on the future needs and requirements of society. Online applications and social networking capabilities have accelerated in…