Undergraduate advertising campaigns courses are known for their integration of knowledge, application of different skills, and group work. This capstone class partners with a real-world client and may be considered the last professional experience in an educational setting before students graduate. Using a multi-methods approach, this study…

In order to improve instruction, teachers need to make sense of and evaluate the critical events that have the potential to strengthen the understanding of students' mathematical thinking. Mathematics instruction has shifted toward inquiry teaching which leaves many teachers attempting to change their practices accordingly. While there are…

This article shares development of a mentor teacher training program to support teacher candidates in their student teaching internship. The mentor teacher training program includes three parts: (a) online training on internship processes and procedures, co-teaching, and a department developed Framework for Extended Oral and Written Feedback, (b)…

The University of South Florida has designed and initiated a two-year teacher residency program that intends to meld classroom preservice teacher instruction with work in classrooms with children from low-income and urban backgrounds. The Urban Teacher Residency Partnership Program is a joint effort between the University of South Florida and…

This study draws upon survey and administrative data on over 9,000 teachers in 336 Miami-Dade County public schools over 2 years to investigate the kinds of collaborations that exist in instructional teams across the district and whether these collaborations predict student achievement. While different kinds of teachers and schools report…

This study examined achievement gains in reading and math for Hispanic middle school students with specific learning disabilities in inclusive versus segregated settings in a large urban school district. The authors report learning gains for students with and without disabilities in inclusive versus segregated settings. Results indicate no…

The PDS Partnership between the University of Central Florida and Friendship Elementary School, a Title 1 school in Volusia County, focused on the National Association for Professional Development Schools' (PDS) "Essentials" in order to establish a shared vision of success for pre-service teachers. Key leaders from both the school and…

Nationally only 40% of the incoming freshmen Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) majors are successful in earning a STEM degree. The University of Central Florida (UCF) EXCEL programme is a National Science Foundation funded STEM Talent Expansion Programme whose goal is to increase the number of UCF STEM graduates. One of the…

In this paper, the authors address the question: what are skills, knowledge and professional dispositions that U.S. co-teachers need to balance the seemingly competing mandates of NCLB and IDEIA in order to prepare teachers for the classrooms of today and tomorrow? Based on the results of two recent studies that focused on secondary co-teacher…

This paper presents an integrated research and teaching model that has resulted from an NSF-funded effort to introduce results of current Machine Learning research into the engineering and computer science curriculum at the University of Central Florida (UCF). While in-depth exposure to current topics in Machine Learning has traditionally occurred…

For nearly four decades, school finance has become progressively more central in school reform efforts aimed at improving student performance. At the same time, the focus of many school business officials and policymakers has turned to efficient uses of current resources in lieu of uniform increases in school funding. With regard to improving…

The purpose of this study was to identify factors associated with the growing use of teacher specialists in the elementary schools, particularly in the area of mathematics. The elementary school principals of a large metropolitan school district located in northeastern Florida responded to an online survey that focused on the type of specialist…

With the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA 2004) and No Child Left Behind legislation (2001), the call for collaboration is omnipresent. A review of the current landscape makes this imperative obvious. With the mandate for inclusion and the necessity for special education teachers to collaborate with their…

In this article, the author discusses the Great American Teach-a-Thon, an event in the school district in Miami-Dade County, Florida, that aims to make the public more aware of what it takes to have effective teachers. The teach-a-thon paired educators with business people and professionals in a novel way that explicitly focused on teacher…

In this article, the author would like to raise awareness of GK?12 programs by sharing experiences from SPICE (Science Partners in Inquiry-based Collaborative Education), a partnership between the University of Florida and Alachua County Public Schools. SPICE pairs nine graduate student fellows with nine middle school science teachers. Each…