Partisan politics challenge educators to determine how best to navigate discussions of controversial subjects within their classrooms. This can be particularly true for new educators in the early stages of developing their confidence and classroom management skills. This qualitative case study uses situated learning and the communities of practice…

In prior studies, we examined Collective Classroom Efficacy (CCE) through the role of teacher and through the voices of students in a diverse classroom developing CCE. One participant exhibited an element of hope that added to her learning experience. Through Lara's telling case, we illustrate how she accomplished her goals through interactions…

This report examines the frequency of particular teacher preparation experiences and explores their relationships to beginning teachers' effectiveness in improving student test scores once they get to the classroom. The report found both differences in how teachers prepare for their certification in the field and that certain experiences are…

This executive summary describes the larger study, "Teacher Preparation Experiences and Early Teaching Effectiveness. NCEE 2019-4007" (ED598664). This study provides information about new teachers' preparation experiences and explores whether particular types of experiences are related to teachers' effectiveness in improving their…

The 13 appendices in this publication accompany the full report, "Teacher Preparation Experiences and Early Teaching Effectiveness. NCEE 2019-4007" (ED598664). They include: (1) Teacher Survey Response Rates by District/State; (2) Comparison of the Subsample Used for Relational Analyses and the Full Sample; (3) Development of the Teacher…

Educational video games provide an opportunity for students to interact with and explore complex representations of academic content and allow for the examination of problem-solving strategies and mistakes that can be difficult to capture in more traditional environments. However, data from such games are notoriously difficult to analyze. This…

This study investigated the relationship between the English language competence of Finnish bilingual pupils and school-external factors such as parental expectations, home involvement, and exposure to English outside the classroom. Data on the pupils' language competence was collected from n?=?122 6th graders in bilingual education, and compared…

This paper examines factors associated with middle school students' perceptions of the quality of the sexual health education (SHE) they received at school. Participants were 478 predominately White young people (256 girls, 222 boys) in grades 6-8 who completed a survey assessing their demographic characteristics; dating and sexual experience; and…

There is a growing public concern in Kenya over the persistent gap between those schools that are consistently ranked at the top and those ranked at the bottom of the annual Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination league tables. This has raised the issue of inequality in educational opportunity. Our primary concern in this paper…

This ethnographic case study examines the dynamic relationship between culture and environmental education within the context of a specific Florida-based public education program. The School District of Hillsborough County (SDHC) offers the program through a three-day field trip to the study site, Nature's Classroom, and accompanying classroom…