The Essential Three (e3) is a professional learning series that focuses on supporting rural school districts and school leaders as they engage in the important work of prioritizing and determining areas of instructional focus. As educators transition to new rigorous state and national standards and face the challenges of learning newly adopted…

The purpose of this study is to explore the effectiveness of the parallel classroom model in comparison to a support facilitation model. Using district-level assessments in geometry, this study assessed student performance when students were taught the same content with the same rigor, where one classroom uses differentiation strategies and…

Research shows that exposure to the outdoors is beneficial to children and can improve the learning experience for students. The Kids in the Woods program in Gainesville, Florida provides 6th grade students with opportunities to learn science through a series of outdoor activities during their regular science classes. The article reports on an…

The student teaching experience is often an important capstone experience of teacher preparatory programs. Student teaching is designed to provide college students who are preparing to be educators with experience in an actual classroom while supervised by a certified teacher. The purpose of this study was to determine preservice teachers'…

In the present transcendental phenomenological study, we describe the experiences of introverted undergraduate students in an active learning English classroom environment at a community college in Florida. We selected 10 participants whose Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) scores indicated clear to very clear on the introversion measure and who…

Research suggests that high-quality work-based learning (WBL) can be a promising approach to solving the leaky pipeline for undertapped demographic groups such as women and students of color, including for STEM fields Community colleges are especially important vehicles for WBL due to their diverse student populations and their partnerships with…

Sense of belonging is an essential element of a high-quality 4-H program. However, little research exists quantifying sense of belonging among 4-H club members. We measured perceived sense of belonging among Florida 4-H members in middle and high school as well as seven factors that influenced continued participation in 4-H. Parental involvement,…

Social and emotional learning (SEL) programs have become increasingly popular during the last 20 years. Although the benefits of SEL programs are significant, the issue of implementation fidelity often arises. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of implementation fidelity in the Life Skills Training (LST) program implemented with…

Research suggests that elementary English Learners (ELs) benefit from interactive dual-language vocabulary instruction delivered one-on-one or in small groups. However, there are many barriers to providing this type of instruction to all ELs, including time constraints and bilingual teacher shortages. Thus, there is a high need for innovative,…

The mission of a community college is distinct from a research one university, where empirical research is valued over investigation of discipline-based teaching and learning. The open-access, affordable, workforce, and transfer emphasis that serves many non-traditional community college students is a rich, meaningful environment for fostering the…

This study describes the development of a special education teacher observation protocol detailing the elements of effective decoding instruction. The psychometric properties of the protocol were investigated through many-facet Rasch measurement (MFRM). Video observations of classroom decoding instruction from 20 special education teachers across…

The global COVID-19 health pandemic caused major interruptions to educational assessment systems, partially due to shifts to remote learning environments, entering the post-COVID educational world into one that is more open to heterogeneity in instructional and assessment modes for secondary students. In addition, in 2020, educational inequities…

Building domain knowledge is essential to a student's success in any course. Chemistry, similar to other STEM disciplines, has a strong cumulative element (i.e., topic areas continuously build upon prior coursework). We employed the testing effect, in the form of post-exam retrieval quizzes, as a way to improve students' understanding of chemistry…

Research Findings: Peer play interactions are important contexts for supporting early learning both at home and at school for preschool children from low-income backgrounds. The current study used structural equation modeling to examine whether teacher-reported learning behaviors in the classroom mediated the relationship between parent-reported…

The purpose of this study was to research the impact of classroom group rotation on student participation and collaboration during engineering activities. The action research plan was developed after identifying a need to increase group efficacy in a classroom setting that focuses on projects and problem-based learning and proved quite difficult…