The problem this qualitative case study addressed is how poor online teacher communication has resulted in students enrolled in full-time virtual schools underperforming academically with assignment completion. The purpose of this study was to explore teachers' perceptions of how their online communication strategies contribute to the timeliness…

Secondary course assignment substantially determines a teacher's day-to-day work life, incentivizing them to realize their personal desires, which prior work shows tend to be working with more advanced students. Teachers have varying abilities to enact these desires, potentially due to their political capital, which is largely influenced by…

The past 10 years have seen a major shift in English and English as a Second Language (ESL) placement and pedagogy in California's Community Colleges (CCC), driven by a developmental education reform movement known as acceleration. Popularized by the faculty-led California Acceleration Project (CAP), the acceleration movement focused on reducing…

The goal of this research study was to find what makes groupwork to be successful. We asked faculty why they give groupwork assignments to their students and what their opinions about the best practices in creating effective groupwork environment for their students are. It was also intended to compare instructors' opinions with research findings…

The creation of ePortfolios as a capstone project for school counselors-in-training has many benefits for the students, instructors, and program. However, there can be tension due to misalignments in goals and lived experiences of the ePortfolio even when the students find ePortfolios useful. This paper explores this tension between instructor…

First-Year Seminars (FYS) are among the high-impact practices described by AAC&U. We studied the long-standing First-Year Seminar Program at our public research university for the ways in which writing assignments--individualized for each seminar--help faculty and students achieve program objectives in critical and analytical thinking, the…

The West Virginia Department of Education's auto grading initiative dates back to 2004--a time when school districts were making their first forays into automation. The Charleston based WVDE had instituted a statewide writing assessment in 1984 for students in fourth, seventh, and 10th grades and was looking to expand that program without having…

Originally founded as a private means for diplomats' children to earn an internationally recognized high school diploma, today the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme (DP) serves students from a variety of backgrounds in 144 countries. The IB mission and Learner Profile--consisting of ten attributes to foster in students--suggest…

The Individual with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA) 2007, a federal special education law, states that students with disabilities requiring special education services can use accommodations or adaptations of the curriculum to access the general education curriculum. A shortened assignment, as an accommodation, can help learning disabled…

A university-wide secondary credential program (middle and high school) has engaged in systemic reform through professional development for content faculty to better equip prospective secondary teacher candidates for supporting the academic and social needs of English language learners (ELLs), particularly in urban schools. Data from five years of…

This dissertation reports on a study investigating the identity of first-year university students as writers. The longitudinal project explored how students from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds construct their identities as undergraduates and as academic writers in their first year. The research was qualitative and interpretative, and used…

In the May 2009 issue of "English Journal", we reported on our analysis of data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress to provide a first look at changes in the teaching of writing over the past 30 years. In this article, we provide a more detailed look, drawing on data collected from visits to 260 English, math, social…

The relationship between mathematics homework and learning in middle-school students and the impact on achievement is the focus of this paper. A review of the literature reveals mixed results. Studies support both positive and a negative impacts of mathematics homework on student achievement or no impact at all. The purpose of this paper is two…

This study is based on data collected during 6 years (12 semesters) in the secondary science methods courses at an urban university in Southern California. The secondary science credential candidates were teaching on emergency permits or internship credentials in local urban secondary schools. They taught science during the day and pursued their…

This study investigates the effects of integrating literacy instruction with biology coursework on high school student learning. It would investigate the relationship between the growth in reading achievement and biology learning. It will target schools serving especially large populations of African American and Latino students. The project will…