Evolutionary theory is fundamental to biology, yet evolution instruction in high schools has often been unsatisfactory. How or whether high school biology teachers teach evolution is influenced by their own acceptance or rejection of evolutionary theory, parents' and community members' views, and in the case of some private schools, their…

From 1991-2019 at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), 202 different faculty individuals, from each of the five UAMS colleges, volunteered to offer 120 different workshops in health science content to 22,731 PreK-12 teachers and some school nurses in the Partners in Health Science (PIHS) program. Participants consumed 83,488…

The purpose of the study was to explore the relationship between the implementation of freshman academies and student achievement in math, English, and science in schools in Arkansas. The study presents a review of the literature that discusses the ninth-grade year and the use of freshman academies to improve student achievement. The study…

The COVID-19 pandemic profoundly impacted the methods of instruction for K12 and higher education institutions around the world. Schools and families were challenged to adapt to online-based modes of instruction with minimal preparation. This study examined the importance of the learning environment and commitment to assignments as predictors of…

Allowing high school students to fulfill a math or science high school graduation requirement via a computer science credit may encourage more student to pursue computer science coursework. This Education Trends report is an update to the original report released in April 2015 and explores state policies that allow or require districts to apply…

This paper presents the results of a nationwide survey of educators for grades 6-12 who specialize in family and consumer sciences education (N=380). The paper examines teacher reports about their self-efficacy in online learning during the switch to off-campus instruction. Data revealed that district communication to teachers indicating that they…

Understanding the mechanisms of increasing the number of physics teachers educated per year at institutions with thriving physics teacher preparation programs may inspire and support other institutions in building thriving programs of their own. The Physics Teacher Education Coalition (PhysTEC), led by the American Physical Society (APS) and the…

Professional development is vital to help teachers gain skills and knowledge to teach about current environmental and societal issues. For climate change education, educators may need information paired with content-specific teaching strategies in order to build confidence to incorporate the topic into their curriculum. We applied educative…

This first analysis of aggregated data from the Kahoot! game-based player response system demonstrates that it can provide assessments of overall US student polar knowledge and identifies differences in polar knowledge across several states. A kahoot online quiz on polar topics recorded over 25,000 United States teacher-hosted classroom players…

Advanced Placement (AP), launched in 1955 by the College Board as a program to offer gifted high school students the opportunity to complete entry-level college coursework, has since expanded to encourage a broader array of students to tackle challenging content. This Education Commission of the State's Policy Analysis identifies key components of…

Integrating climate change into environmental education programs and formal science classrooms can be difficult, as the issue remains controversial and highly politicized among the American public. This study proposes that the same cultural values that shape worldview differences and divide public opinion on anthropogenic climate change will…

The authors examined the relationships of ACT Aspire test scores and high school course grades, AP test scores, and Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) test scores, demonstrating criterion-related as well as convergent and discriminant validity evidence. They found that ACT Aspire test scores are strong…

The "Knowledge Is Power Program" ("KIPP") is a nonprofit network of more than 200 public charter schools educating early childhood, elementary, middle, and high school students. The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) identified four studies of "KIPP" that fall within the scope of the Charter Schools topic area and meet…

Guided by a new framework, the NAEP science assessment was updated in 2009 to keep the content current with key developments in science, curriculum standards, assessments, and research. The 2009 framework organizes science content into three broad content areas. Physical science includes concepts related to properties and changes of matter, forms…

Regional Educational Laboratory Southwest partnered with the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) to examine Arkansas's middle and high school indicators of postsecondary readiness and success, building on an earlier study of these indicators (Hester et al., 2021). Academic indicators include attaining proficiency on state achievement tests,…