Longstanding inequities exist in community colleges across the United States. To address these inequities, California Community Colleges educators have engaged in a variety of practices including the writing of equity plans and participation in equity data inquiry. However, there is an urgent need for greater focus on racial equity and for more…

Avoiding the discussion of controversial topics in U.S. classrooms deprives students of an important part of their learning. Jonathan Zimmerman and Emily Robertson, authors of "The Case for Contention: Teaching Controversial Issues in American Schools" (University of Chicago Press, 2017) say Americans are terrible at having informed,…

The shift from teacher-centered to student-centered instruction requires language teachers' roles to change from being lecturers and controllers to facilitators and advisors. This shift requires students to have a high degree of learner autonomy. However, some teachers hesitate to promote learner autonomy. If they remain uncertain about the…

This study provides a portrait of Ms. Grace, a veteran English teacher at a high school in Silicon Valley. I examine how Ms. Grace's perspectives on her immigrant-origin Latine students informed her teaching, highlighting the perspectives and practices that guided her pedagogy. Analysis of the data demonstrates the cyclical nature of how this…

This qualitative study examined special education teachers' perceptions of student success in online instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic school closures to isolate the key determinants in the differential student outcomes reported by the teachers. Data were collected from 16 teachers in the U.S. state of California using semi-structured…

This article presents a literature review regarding the identification and pedagogical practices for educating English language learners and the newly designated student classification of Long Term English Language Learners (LTELs) in California. Challenges encountered by middle and high school content area teachers are highlighted as well as…

The belief that mathematics ability is a fixed trait is particularly common and may be a key reason for many students' disinterest and underperformance in mathematics. This study investigates how mathematics teaching practices might contribute to students' beliefs about mathematics ability being a fixed or malleable trait (mindset). Through a…

Students often ask, "Why do we have to study history?" and teachers struggle with how to answer. If a history teacher's purpose is to simply teach students about historical events, then Dimension Four of the "College, Career and Civic Life (C3) Framework," "Communicating conclusions and taking informed action," seems…

Service learning--sometimes known as community engagement--is a well-documented pedagogical approach with a long history, a strong theoretical basis, a specific ethos, and many passionate advocates. Yet it is conspicuously underused as a teaching method in the worldwide field of English language teaching. In this article, I argue that English…

California districts were forced to shift to distance learning models in the spring of 2020 and the transition to distance learning for students in the early grades--transitional kindergarten through third grade (TK-3)--has proved difficult for students, parents, and teachers alike. As distance learning persists, administrators and teachers can…

School districts that have adopted the 3Ls™ approach to provide rigorous instruction for English learners (ELs) have, invariably, had to make a case for what this approach offers, how it reflects best practices in English language development (ELD) instruction, and how it meets the needs of English learners. They have also had to make explicit…

The term "newcomers" is commonly used to describe students who have recently arrived in U.S. schools. Depending on usage, newcomers may mean students in their first 6 months in U.S. schools, in their first 4 years, or anywhere in between. A majority arrive speaking little to no English, most are from socioeconomically disadvantaged…

For school districts in California, just as one set of revolutionary new content standards is beginning to feel familiar, another deep change is brewing. Districts have now had more than five years to wrestle with how they implement the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSS-M) (NGA Center & CCSSO, 2010). Many have made large-scale…

This Information Capsule summarizes the research on Structured English Immersion (SEI) programs. Most school districts use either the SEI or Bilingual Education (BE) model to instruct elementary level English Language Learners (ELLs). In SEI programs, ELLs receive all or most of their instruction in English. BE programs provide instruction in two…

This qualitative study seeks to understand and resolve the difficulties that teachers encounter when integrating mobile devices in classrooms. To address the issue of teacher receptiveness, three undergraduate researchers collaborated with an education professor in spring 2012 to complete a qualitative study with a two-fold purpose: 1) to…