Leadership is a skill that can be learned through professional development, mentoring, and leadership development programs. In Ontario, the Teacher Learning and Leadership Program (TLLP) helps educators develop their leadership skills through a Ministry of Education--funded project that addresses student learning needs in their classrooms. This…

This qualitative research study traces the motivations for teaching of 13 teacher candidates enrolled in an urban-based alternative certification program. After using a push-pull factor analysis, the data suggest that most participants left their previous careers due to financial shortcomings or work instability. As a result, these participants…

In this article, college students and faculty narrate their co-constructed journey across differences, through intersecting identities and intertwining paths in an effort to stand in solidarity with students, teachers, and community members resisting the removal of the Mexican-American Studies (MAS) program in the Tucson Unified School District in…

This study explores the appropriateness of the Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT) as an instrument of assessing English-language arts (ELA) teacher candidates' effectiveness in a rural border community. Eight -candidates participated in the study. The findings call into question the adequacy of PACT to assess the…

In this study, we collected and analyzed data to examine the extent to which the achievement gap between urban and suburban children extended to their knowledge of digital literacies. Findings indicated that the suburban children outperformed the urban students in each of the performance areas, and that suburban children reported greater…

This article describes possibilities afforded by using social media, specifically Twitter, as a way to encourage students to join political conversations across the United States and around the world. In this study, we describe a project in which students used Twitter to share commentary about the state of the 2012 presidential election. The…

This essay offers suggestions for faculty who are designing study abroad (SA) experiences by outlining a three-week Maymester study abroad to Reggio Emilia, Italy, and a semester-long study abroad to Brussels, Belgium. The authors reflect on commonalities in planning, recruiting, preparing students, and conducting each trip, as well as some of the…

As teachers attempt to sustain meaningful school change, the need for visionary yet feasible reform becomes profound. To help reach this end, this article examines the ideas of Willingham and Perkins for principles of effective teaching and learning. While seemingly divergent in their approaches for reform, examination of their collective ideas in…

For any curriculum area that entails writing, digital storytelling could transform students' perceptions of and their actual abilities to express themselves through the written word. The use of two Web sites has helped the students of one school go from staring apprehensively at blank pages to eagerly publishing stories.

This article shares findings from a year-long study about social practices of high school youth with mobile devices during school time. In particular, this study found that students see their school time as fluidly social and academic. Educators and policy-makers need to carefully consider these social practices when preparing 21st century youth…

This study draws on ethnographic data from a year-long multimodal media production (MMP) course and the experience of an African American female adolescent who used the production of multimodal Hip Hop texts to express her creativity and growing socially conscious view of the world. The study demonstrates how students made meaning multimodally and…

There is research spanning the 20th century on student disengagement. Despite all the research, the problem remains. It is time to adopt a different perspective. This article attempts to make transparent the influences on disengagement in schools by applying Jean Gebser's (1985) empirical phenomenological study of cultural consciousness. What…

The REAL Camp-NIU Experience established at Northern Illinois University serves as a model to afford high school students an experience in science- and mathematics-related careers. The participants' perceptions of the college-based camp curriculum were very favorable, as were the perceptions from preservice teachers and practicing teachers…

Project selection is an essential matter of design teaching. Based on observations of a specific curriculum, the author claims that a wide repertoire of subjects including offices, restaurants, hotels, and other public places are used to prepare design students, but that schools and other "learning environments/ schools" are similarly ignored.…

This investigation explored the effects of action research on teachers in a graduate education program. Mixed methods were utilized, combining a semantic differential study of student attitudes with qualitative analysis of students' perceptions of their experience as action researchers. Results indicate that participants perceived themselves as…