Research shows that technology makes a difference in student motivation, engagement, and active learning. It also helps students develop critical thinking, collaboration, and problem-solving skills. Providing each student with his or her own computing device such as a Palm handheld computer and appropriate software can have a great impact. This…

The author is a learning support teacher and works with children at Key Stage 3 (KS3) who are struggling to keep up with their peers in most areas of the curriculum. Many of them have specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia and dyspraxia and problems may emerge in reading, spelling, writing, mathematics, speaking or listening.…

It is not enough to declare that differentiated instruction is going to be the order of the day. It also is not enough to call in a consultant and have teachers listen to a presentation about product, process, and assessment paradigms. Differentiated instruction is a practice that grows out of certain values that are important in the way school…

The State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) is the principal association representing the technology leadership in all fifty states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. This is SETDA's ninth annual report on select educational technology activities. This year's report includes…

On March 13, 2009, Dr. Joyce VanTassel-Baska, an eminent leader in gifted education, was presented with a Festschrift, a volume of articles submitted by colleagues as well as former and current graduate students to celebrate her life's work and influence on the field. This volume is a free supplement from The College of William and Mary's Center…

Classrooms across the country are discovering the power of service-learning--the ideal way to help students develop social and academic skills while giving back to their community. Now for the first time, there's a practical how-to guide on using serving-learning to promote inclusion and differentiate instruction for students with and without…

The North Carolina Virtual Public School completed its first session during the summer of 2007. Evaluation results revealed differences between accelerated and credit recovery students, including a significantly higher likelihood for accelerated students to rate their courses as high quality, to express interest in taking another online course,…

This study examined how instructional challenges presented by gifted students shaped teachers' instructional strategies. This study is a qualitative research grounded in a social constructivist framework. The participants were three high school science teachers who were teaching identified gifted students in both heterogeneously- and…

Analyzing how Japanese people learned in the Edo Period (1603-1867), one realizes that Japan had one of the highest literacy rates in the world in the 17th century. By studying this period, I will introduce traditional non-directive teaching and learning theories which still influence educational practices in today's Japan. I will further propose…

U.S. high schools are, with a number of notable exceptions, failing to prepare students adequately for futures as well-equipped and productive contributors to our society, whether as college students or as members of the workplace. This "Infobrief" focuses on three key elements of high school redesign proposed by Association for Supervision and…

Ever since the PLATO system of the 1960's, CALL (computer assisted language learning) has had a major focus on providing self-paced, auto-correcting exercises for language learners to practice their skills and improve their knowledge of discrete areas of language learning. The computer has been recognized from the beginning as a patient and…

Brewster Elementary, a rural K-6 school of almost 500 students, just north of Yakima, WA, could reasonably be considered a school at risk: Fully 92 percent of its students qualify for Title I funding; 83 percent use English as a second language. For eight years running, Brewster has been using the HOSTS Learning system, with funding help from the…

Clausen-Grace and Kelley believe that when it comes to independent reading, the question is not whether to use it, but rather how we can implement it to get the most benefit for our students. Here, they discuss the supporting research, defuse potential problems, identify characteristics of effective SSR programs, and outline their own action…

The idea of a personal style in learning has grown during the past decade to dominate teacher discourse in the UK. The theory supporting this idea is work in understanding cognitive and learning style. A recent review of learning styles for the Learning and Skills Development Agency in the UK has been widely publicised and is deeply critical of…

The State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA)--the principal association representing the technology leadership in all fifty states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs--presents its eighth annual report on select, national, educational technology activities. This…