In spite of its increasing popularity, distance education faces challenges -- levels of digital literacy, access to technology, workload and time management, students' feelings of isolation and disconnection -- that can have a significant impact on the experience of the learners. In addressing these issues, we propose a pedagogical model for…

This study addresses a gap in the literature regarding the implementation of digital strategies in educational institutions, particularly universities. Despite significant advancements in the development of digital strategies, there remains a lack of commitment and vision for their effective implementation. This study systematically reviewed the…

This paper explored the nature of alternative education in Texas public schools. Within these learning environments addressing both academic and social literacy is of utmost importance and can be achieved through individualized instruction and attention to goal-setting. The recommendations of this paper were specific to the experiences of an…

Today people learn in many diverse locations and contexts, beyond the confines of classical brick and mortar classrooms. This trend is ever increasing, progressing hand-in-hand with the progress of technology. Context-aware learning systems are systems which adapt to the learner's context, providing tailored learning for a particular learning…

The Dalton Plan is well known in educational historiography. But there are also unanswered questions such as: how is it possible that a pedagogical experiment begun in the United States in February 1920 had, by the month of March, already come to be known first hand by a visiting English educator? The objective in this article is to find an…

In "Differentiation and the Brain: How Neuroscience Supports the Learner-Friendly Classroom, Second Edition," authors David Sousa and Carol Ann Tomlinson examine the basic principles of differentiation in light of what the current research on educational neuroscience reveals. This research offers information and insights that can help…

This topic brief is one in a series on personalized learning prepared for Conversations with Innovators, 2018. It seems logical that students would be more successful in learning if instruction is tailored, including the environment, pace, and presentation of concepts, to each student's needs, interests, and aspirations. However, personalizing…

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often require differentiated strategies to access academic content. Hence, research-based interventions to support STEM (Science, Mathematics, Technology, and Engineering) education for individuals with ASD are necessary to guide implementation. This review serves to (a) summarize studies that…

To create a clear picture of a personalized learning environment, this article walks us through a day at the Waukesha STEM Academy, a Wisconsin charter school serving about 300 students in grades 6-8. The article follows Cal, a student making the transition from his former traditional school (where every week looked about the same) to a school…

Based on the presupposition that visual literacy skills are not usually learned unaided by osmosis, but require targeted learning support, this article explores how everyday encounters with visuals can be leveraged as contingent learning opportunities. The author proposes that a learner's environment can become a visual learning space if…

L. S. Vygotsky's contributions to social research shifted paradigms by constructing now-foundational theories of teaching, learning, language, and their educational interactions. This article contextualizes a nearly forgotten, century-old research corpus, "The Fundamentals of Defectology." Drawing on "Defectology," two…

The purpose of this article is to assist classroom teachers in discerning qualitative differences between a student-written report and student-led research. There are many connotations to the terms "report" and "research," and they can have implications on how teachers effectively or ineffectively differentiate instruction to…

Active learning exercises engage students during lectures, but often fail to take account of the individual learning position of each student. The 'quecture' is a partially flipped lecture that incorporates students posing their own questions (quecture questions), discussing them during lectures and revisiting them later. These interactive…

The challenge to include students with disabilities in Catholic schools requires a comprehensive system of service delivery to meet student need and avoid pathologizing individuals as problems. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of Multi-tiered Systems of Support (MTSS), a framework for organizing resources, delivering services,…

A one-size-fits-all model of instruction cannot provide equitable access to education for all students. Research demonstrates that thoughtfully changing instruction to support student learning during a lesson, known as adaptive teaching, is an important component of effective literacy instruction. To understand this dynamic dimension of effective…