Big Picture Learning's Upstream Collaborative is a professional learning community of continuation high schools, community day schools, and other alternative schools throughout California and Washington State. School leaders in the collaborative receive coaching, professional development, and practical support to develop learner-centered,…

For the past several decades, researchers have identified problems with the validity and reliability of student opinion of teaching survey (teaching survey) results, leading many researchers and faculty members to conclude that conducting comprehensive, meaningful assessment of teaching requires using multiple measures to collect and triangulate…

Student perceptions of faculty-student interactions are well-represented in existing research (Fauria & Zellner, 2015; Hoffman et al., 2002; Reason et al., 2007; Schwartz et al., 2018; Tinto 2000, 2012). However, faculty perceptions of this phenomenon have limited presence in the body of knowledge within scholarly literature (Cox et al., 2010;…

Student evaluation of teachers (SET) is an important method of assessing professors' teaching skills and effectiveness. The purpose of this study is to determine whether and to what extent a relationship between grades and student evaluations of professors exists and how this relationship influences faculty practices, such as teaching styles,…

Currently, in the United States, there is a high dropout rate in higher learning institutions. Additionally, there is a great disparity among the student dropout and retention rates in institutions of higher learning. This is because students of color, such as African-Americans and Hispanics, have a higher dropout rate and lower retention rates…

Interest is a unique internal motivator of learning that can be sustained and developed by outside influences. A challenge in rural areas is instilling interest in young adults to pursue careers local industries demand in order to mitigate rural out-migration. The purpose of this mixed methods intervention study was to determine if and explain how…

The problem is school systems may lack detailed guidelines on how teachers make physical contact with their students and protect themselves from false accusations of inappropriate behaviors. The purpose of this qualitative exploratory case study was to explore the perceptions of K-8 administrators and teachers on school and school districts…

Although approximately 20% of American college students are on academic probation, relatively little is known about how community college students perceived academic probation's role in assisting them throughout their entire college journey. The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of community college students who experienced…

This qualitative phenomenological study was designed to explore the perceptions of school leaders, parents, and teachers in an urban school about strategies to motivate students to improve attendance and decrease absenteeism. The problem addressed by this study is the negative impact chronic absenteeism has on the social climate of a school and…

Many Beginning Teachers struggle to appropriately manage their classrooms and their students' behavior. Research has shown that this difficulty with classroom management negatively impacts the academic achievement of students and disproportionately impacts minoritized students and students experiencing poverty. This action research study aims to…

Empathy is an important instructor variable that improves learning outcomes by creating a safe learning environment (Herbek & Yammarino, 1990). Advancements in virtual reality technology and 360-degree videography allow individuals to empathize with others through a perceptual illusion called embodiment (Bertrand et al., 2018). The purpose of…

This qualitative case study cross-sectionally explored the perceptions of general education teachers who service at-risk youth, through semi-structured interviews, observations, and questionnaires to analyze their personal perspective on how the quality of the student-teacher relationship is impacted by integrated technology into the classroom.…

Social media has been used in massive open online courses (MOOCS) from the beginning of the MOOC movement. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google Hangouts have provided collaborative and engaging spaces for MOOC students to work together on projects and activities, and for instructors to guide students. Instructional…

A brief, problem-oriented phase such as an inventing activity is one potential instructional method for preparing learners not only cognitively but also motivationally for learning. Student teachers often need to overcome motivational barriers in order to use computer-based learning opportunities. In a preliminary experiment, we found that student…

The present study investigates preservice science teachers' attitudes towards chemistry; their misconceptions about chemical kinetics; and relationships between pre-service science teachers' attitudes toward chemistry and misconceptions about chemical kinetics were examined. The sample of this study consisted of 81 freshman pre-service science…