This quantitative study sought to identify the impact of a mathematics curriculum that does not incorporate homework on mathematics achievement. Based on recent standardized testing data, educational practices must be examined to improve mathematics results. This study focused on one district setting that at the start of the 2023 school year…

Fluency, vocabulary building, making inferences, expanding background knowledge, and metacognitive thinking are reading skills taught in schools across the country. Which of these do ELA teachers consider to be most important? It is not known which of these five areas Western Pennsylvania teachers believe has the most impact on comprehension…

The investigation of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and the quality of education within and between the four disciplines continues to be a topic of concern throughout the United States. Employers, policymakers and educators have recognized a need for a stronger focus on the quality of STEM education in schools (Becker…

Purpose: A growing trend in instructional improvement efforts is the use of formative assessment informed by research-based developmental trajectories of how students gain deeper understanding of subject matter content over time. This article reports the findings of a large-scale experimental study of an innovative mathematics professional…

This qualitative multi-site case study explores the self-identified traits of four Philadelphia schools that demonstrate growth in grade four proficiency on the Math Pennsylvania System of State Assessment (PSSA). Obtained proficiency/advanced scores on the PSSA show a drop from third to fourth grade cohorts during 2017, 2018, and 2019. In…

This instrumental mixed methods case study investigated Grades 3-5 classroom teachers' perceptions of teaching for creativity and the effects of a researcher-developed, one-day, online professional development creativity module intervention within a suburban school district in south-central Pennsylvania. Creativity has been identified as a…

Based on 1,364 children across Grades 1, 3, and 5, the present study explored the mutualism of (externalizing and internalizing) behavioral problems and language, and whether social skills explained such mutualism. The random intercept cross-lagged panel models were conducted to control for between-person level variance and to explore mutualism of…

Proficiency rates on Pennsylvania's statewide assessments in 2022 remain below pre-pandemic levels, especially in math, but there is evidence that student learning has begun to recover. Proficiency rates for grades 5-8 in 2022 improved in both English language arts (ELA) and math relative to rates predicted for 2021 from a Mathematica research…

By participating in global projects, students learn to communicate, asynchronously or synchronously, through digital tools and media. The project in this article paired pre-service teachers in the United States with primary students, ages 8 to 10, in South Korea. The intent was to expose pre-service teachers to global collaboration projects, and…

Researchers have looked at the role the teacher plays for mediating emotional regulation (ER) in students, but it is understudied at the elementary level. Knowing that emotional regulation skills develop rapidly in a child's early years there was a need to explore teacher perceptions of ER skills in K-4 students. This qualitative case study…

Since the 1960's, the federal government has become increasingly more involved with the product of public education, tracking academic proficiency through the means of federally mandated high-stakes assessments (Ali & Favaro, 2007; Zumeta, 2011). Principal leadership is one of the most significant factors that can lead to academic proficiency,…

Star Math (SM) is a popular computer adaptive test (CAT) schools use to screen students for academic risk. Despite its popularity, few independent investigations of its diagnostic accuracy have been conducted. We evaluated the diagnostic accuracy of SM based upon vendor provided cut-scores (25th and 40th percentiles nationally) in predicting…

It is not known how school leaders describe their own technology leadership competencies at the upper elementary and middle school levels. The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study is to describe what technology leadership competencies are present in assistant principals and principals of grades 4-8 in the state of Pennsylvania. This study…

Teachers' efforts to manage classroom social dynamics are associated with students' social and academic adjustment, but the determinants of teachers' use of social dynamics management strategies have remained unexplored. Multiple potential determinants of strategy use were examined in a study of 164 teachers and their 2986 students in 164 1st,…

Modern societal functions for meeting basic needs contribute to the lack of understanding many Americans have about agriculture's connection to human health and environmental quality. Consequently, this limited understanding has produced a need to measure agricultural literacy to develop programming or enhance existing agricultural educational…