Dr. Wangari Maathai--"environmentalist, human rights advocate, global peace worker, and community builder"--passed away in 2011. The first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. Maathai left a legacy even greater than the 47 million trees that her organization, the Greenbelt Movement, has planted across Kenya since 1977. As…

The authors describe an impact study of Classroom Assessment for Student Learning (CASL), a widely used professional development program in classroom and formative assessment. Researchers randomly assigned 67 elementary schools to receive CASL materials or continue with regularly scheduled professional development. Teachers in CASL schools formed…

This evaluation study provides information about the implementation and outcomes of the 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) program in West Virginia, from September 2015 through May 2016, in which 12,388 students participated overall. The report draws on information from online surveys of directors of thirty six 21st CCLC programs…

Minnesota has a persistent and substantial student achievement gap based on race and family income. There are also substantial achievement gaps between native English speakers and English learners (Minnesota Compass, n.d.). In 2019, Saint Paul Promise Neighborhood (SPPN) worked with Hmong American Partnership (HAP) and Saint Paul Public Schools…

This article highlights pedagogical practices in an intentionally designed course focused on fostering cross-cultural, multi-level interaction between two undergraduate student groups and Latino youth from the local school district. The study describes how students identify culture, perceive the role and influence of culture, and engage with the…

In this paper, we examined data collected as part of a 5-year project designed to foster reform-based urban science teaching through teachers' communities of inquiry. Drawing upon a distributed leadership framework, we analyzed teacher "talk" during professional learning community (PLC) meetings. This analysis yielded five elements:…

This study describes changes in cognitive persistence, a key measure of mastery motivation, between the ages of 10 (grade 4) and 14 (grade 8). Prior research in the field of mastery motivation has focused mainly on early childhood. No longitudinal research findings have been published about age changes in mastery motivation during the school…

When studying informal science programs, researchers often overlook the opportunities enabled and constrained in each program and the practices reinforced for participants. In this case study, I examined the normative scientific practices reinforced in one-week-long "Herpetology" (the study of reptiles and amphibians) program for…

Early adolescents, particularly from underrepresented or marginalized communities, may feel disconnected from school science leading to a lack of engagement. The lack of connection between their out of school experiences and school science may lead them to devalue science. This study examines interviews with 56 middle school students and 12…

This report examines the impact of content-intensive Professional Development (PD) on teachers' math content knowledge, their instructional practice, and their students' achievement. The study's PD had three components, totaling 93 hours. The core of the PD was "Intel Math," an intensive 80-hour workshop delivered in summer 2013 that…

Improving math achievement among U.S. students remains a high priority as results from recent math assessments continue to show room for improvement. For example, 60 percent of fourth-graders scored below the proficient level on the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress. On the most recent Program for International Student Assessment's…

Recent results from national and international assessments continue to show a need for improvement in math achievement among U.S. students. For example, 60 per-cent of grade 4 students scored below the proficient level on the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress. In an era of increasingly rigorous state standards, teachers at all grade…

The purpose of this article is to inform teachers about the ways technology can be integrated to add value to literacy instruction. Artistic technology-integrated literacy and disciplinary instruction in preK through grade 4 classrooms is described through the stories of five teachers who were identified as both strong teachers of literacy and…

Differentiation is an important practice in today's increasingly diverse classrooms. The researchers used collective case study methods to investigate the role of the principal in supporting differentiated literacy instruction in three purposively selected elementary schools with a documented history of literacy differentiation. For the fourth and…

The People Learning Urban Science (PLUS) program creates partnerships and coordinates efforts involving a local zoo, university, and school district, seeking to instill within students a sense of the natural environment. Even though the majority of students live among concrete and metal structures, their eyes and ears can be trained to make…