Grade 3-5 students in southeastern Arkansas are reading below grade level despite the efforts of educators. The study explored educator perceptions of the Reading Initiative for Student Excellence (R.I.S.E.) professional development, in which educators learn about Science of Reading (SOR) instructional strategies and how to implement them in the…

Raising scientifically literate citizens has been the main concern of the science education community. Socioscientific issues (SSIs) provide a context to facilitate individuals to expand their epistemic understanding and develop scientific reasoning skills such as evidence-based argumentation and consensus building. In this qualitative research,…

Meeting the social-emotional needs of a diverse student body has proven challenging for U.S. school district leaders, leading to considerable research on culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP). Teachers and administrators have noted challenges in implementing CRP in social-emotional learning (SEL) programs within their existing curricula. In this…

Research has shown that teacher evaluation feedback has not positively impacted teachers' practice or instruction. An average of 53% of U.S. Virgin Island teachers disagreed or strongly disagreed on the value of the feedback they received from administrators on the evaluation system. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore the…

Recent advancements in technology have created enriching and engaging learning opportunities in education. Today, online games are used more frequently in education in an attempt to engage students in learning activities and help increase student participation for students with and without disabilities. However, limited research has been conducted…

Although service learning has been documented as a promising pedagogy for middle grades learners, it remains the exception rather than the rule in many middle schools. This qualitative study examined fifth grade students' experience of a service-learning class. Using the tenets of service learning and experiential learning theory as the…

As STEM initiatives increase throughout elementary schools, literacy teachers need help finding their role in school-wide implementation. This qualitative case study explored the perceptions and willingness of sixteen literacy teachers to integrate engineering practices with children's texts. Through the lens of Rosenblatt's Transactional Theory,…

Parental involvement is an integral variable that bears a significant value in the overall academic achievement and learning process of a student's educational journey. Therefore, all parents should play a major role in their children's academic success from elementary through middle and high school. The prime focus of this research was to examine…

Professional development (PD) enhances teachers' effectiveness and fosters a more favorable disposition towards inclusive education. However, some teachers have expressed a sense of inadequacy in their readiness to instruct students with disabilities within inclusive classrooms due to a perceived deficiency in training. The perspectives of K-12…

Background: The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study of 2016 lays claim to the need for critical thinking to be developed since, in the South African context, 78% of learners could not even retrieve explicitly stated information (lower-order thinking) from texts, as opposed to 4% in the rest of the world. Critical, higher-order…

The effectiveness of homework on improving student academic achievement depends on several factors; for example, feedback provided by the teacher (i.e. grading) and student engagement are important moderators in this process. However, the relationships between the types of homework feedback commonly used by teachers and student school engagement…

This study explores how online mathematics games contribute to Grade 8 learners' understanding of basic principles and more sophisticated aspects of algebra. This project documents the trajectory of a purposive sample of 30 Grade 8 learners doing mathematics and one mathematics educator. The study is premised on the argument that learners with the…

Secondary public education for students with severe disabilities offers some of the last opportunities for improved social/behavioral skills, activities of daily living, and cognitive/academic instruction. The problem is that thorough descriptions of self-contained classroom ecology and teachers' use of evidence-based strategies are limited.…

Educator preparation programs design their coursework and field experiences to help future teachers with knowledge, skills, and abilities to effectively teach mathematics. However, implementation of mathematical pedagogy and content has been seen as challenging for many school systems. Elementary and middle school teachers' experiences in their…

The purpose of this study was to explore how middle school principals stay current with social media used by young adolescents. This study also explored middle school principals' developmentally responsive practices that guide young adolescent use of social media. Although middle school principals may believe their practices to be effective, these…