The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) launched the Collaborating Districts Initiative (CDI) with the goal of supporting school districts to build their capacities to promote social and emotional learning (SEL) for all students. Twenty large, urban districts across the country participate in the CDI. Although many…

The central and distinguishing thesis of social and cultural perspectives on outcome equity is that public school classrooms are culturally biased environments. Such environments disaffect children who arrive at school from the economic or cultural margin. The "formative learning environment" (FoLE) establishes and sustains legitimate…

Providing clear guidance to teachers is not a straightforward task for school systems: Teachers get information about what to teach and how to teach from many sources, some of which are beyond the control of school systems. When teachers get different, even conflicting, messages about what and how to teach from various sources, they likely…

This paper reports on the needs identified as important to 27 novice elementary mathematics teachers and examines how Connect-ME, an online mathematics community, provides these supports. Qualitative data were collected using two focus groups and 16 telephone interviews. Findings validate the need for alternative teacher professional development…

Online modes of teacher professional development (PD) have gained prominence in recent years for their potential to transform and expand access to high-quality resources and experiences that positively impact teachers' knowledge, beliefs, instructional practices, and ultimately, student learning. However, with the increasing demand for and…

This report is a collaborative research effort between the New Media Consortium (NMC), Concordia International School Shanghai, and NIST International School in Bangkok, Thailand, to help inform international school leaders in Asia about significant developments in technologies supporting teaching, learning, and creative inquiry in primary and…

The "Technology Outlook for STEM+ Education 2013-2018: An NMC Horizon Project Sector Analysis" reflects a collaborative research effort between the New Media Consortium (NMC), the Centro Superior para la Enseñanza Virtual (CSEV), the Departamento de Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Control at the Universidad Nacional de Educación a…

Research has consistently shown that principal leadership matters for successful schools. Evaluating principals on the behaviors shown to improve student learning should be an important leverage point for raising leadership quality. Yet principals are often evaluated with the use of instruments with no theoretical background and little, if any,…