Over the past several decades, there has been increasing interest in program- and university-level assessment and aligning learning outcomes to program content. Curriculum mapping is a tool that creates a visual map of all courses in the curriculum and how they relate to curriculum learning outcomes. Assessment tools/activities are often included…

The science of climate change is a complex subject to teach. Teachers find climate change a challenging topic to teach due to a myriad of reasons. Gayford, 2010 describes some of the challenges teachers face while teaching climate change science as "first, the controversial nature of the topic; second, it does not relate well to the normal…

Opponents of the Common Core State Standards are ramping up legislative pressure and public relations efforts aimed at getting states to scale back--or even abandon--the high-profile initiative, even as implementation proceeds and tests aligned with the standards loom. Critics of the common core have focused recent lobbying and media efforts on…

A successful digital conversion for classrooms, districts, and states is not determined by the technology, but by how technology enables teaching and learning. The purpose of our multisite case study was to document digital instructional strategies teachers use to enhance and transform student learning, and align that use with learning research.…

Teacher professional development (PD) is a complex, ongoing challenge as educational systems attempt to deliver excellent programming in pursuit of increased student achievement (Opfer and Pedder 2011). This article examines Idaho Total Instructional Alignment (TIA), a model for teacher PD that is currently being utilized in secondary schools…

Some teaching centers flounder while others flourish. This paper provides concrete suggestions for launching or revitalizing a teaching center, drawn from the experiences of these authors and from principles in the literature. Two center directors worked to apply the principles in the literature to their newly launched or revitalized centers. One…