The Learning Team at The Florida Aquarium in Tampa received funding in 2014 to create and conduct a long-term outdoor learning experience for Hillsborough County, Florida, fifth-grade students. The program was designed with four parts to optimize students' experiences in their local watershed, including both classroom and field activities. This…

Educators, researchers, and policy makers concerned about college under-enrollment among underserved groups of students have traditionally focused reform efforts at the high school level. Over the last several decades, however, there has been a growing interest in improving college readiness beginning at the elementary level. Recently, the…

We investigated differences between field-study classrooms and traditional science classrooms in terms of the learning environment and students' attitudes to science, as well as the differential effectiveness of field-study classrooms for students differing in sex and English proficiency. A modified version of selected scales from the What Is…

This study investigated the proposal that (a) contextual and personal factors affect the endorsement of social goals during early adolescence and (b) contextual factors and social goals may change over time. Self-reports of classroom contextual factors (i.e., promotion of performance goals, social interaction, and mutual respect) and personal…

How to incorporate mobile students, who enter schools/classrooms after the start of the school year, into educational performance evaluations remains to be a challenge. As mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), all states currently require that a school is accountable only if the student has been enrolled in the school for a full…

Culturally responsive educational practices have arisen as effective means of increasing culturally diverse students' academic achievement and psychological well-being; however, the relational processes involved are not well understood. Using grounded theory, this study examines the relational processes of one culturally responsive teacher and her…

In an effort to implement school reform to meet the needs of a changing society, schools have taken action to assist students in achieving proficiency on standardized tests by implementing departmentalized gender-inclusive classroom environments in the public school system. Research conducted in M. Gurian and P. Henley's (2001) "Boys and…

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and the Foundation for Excellence in Education have embarked on a well-funded campaign to spread selected Florida education reforms to other states. These reforms include assigning letter grades to schools, high-stakes testing, promotion and graduation requirements, bonus pay, a wide variety of alternative teacher…

Authentic discussions are dialogically oriented classroom interactions where participants present and consider multiple perspectives and often use others' input in constructing their contributions. Despite their instructional effectiveness, authentic discussions are reportedly rare in classrooms. This qualitative case study examines the features…

This research is distinctive in that parents' perceptions were utilised in conjunction with students' perceptions in investigating science classroom learning environments among Grade 4 and 5 students in South Florida. The What Is Happening In this Class? (WIHIC) questionnaire was modified for young students and their parents and administered to…

In 2006-07, New York City, the largest school district in the United States, decided it would follow several other school systems in adopting a progress report program. Under its program, the city grades schools from A to F according to an accumulating point system based on the weighted average of measurements of school environment, students'…

In this paper we analyze the impact of classroom peers on individual student performance with a unique longitudinal data set covering all Florida public school students in grades 3-10 over a five-year period. Unlike many previous data sets used to study peer effects in education, our data set allow us to identify each member of a given student's…

Teachers and principals don't always agree about the effects on education of accountability systems based on high-stakes testing. Mr. Jones and Mr. Egley look at the implications of these differing perceptions and suggest some strategies for creating a climate in which teachers and administrators can move forward on improving student learning.…

We queried Florida elementary teachers about how they perceived their principals' professional and personal inviting leadership behaviors during a time when many teachers and principals felt a lot of pressure due to test-based accountability. Despite the pressure, teachers reported that their principals demonstrated fairly high levels of inviting…