At a small, private school in the southern US, an elective first-year design (FYD) course is offered in addition to the required capstone design course; both courses challenge student teams to tackle real-world problems. In FYD, positive team member effectiveness is cultivated through teaming instruction, demonstrations, and practice. In this…

With the "flattening" of the global economy in the 21st century, the teaching of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) has taken on new importance as economic competition has become truly global. STEM education has evolved into a meta-discipline, an integrated effort that removes the traditional barriers between these…

The thoughtful utilization of student course evaluation data has been documented in the literature as a way to significantly improve student learning outcomes and the overall quality of instruction. However, at many community colleges, course evaluations continue to be used only for summative purposes or as a generic measure of instructor…

Communities in Schools is one of the nation's oldest and largest providers of integrated student supports, also known as "wraparound services." Started in New York City in the 1970s, the agency now works with more than 2,300 schools in 25 states and the District of Columbia. The model is straightforward: Communities in Schools recruits,…

Summer research experiences are an increasingly popular means of increasing awareness of, and developing interest in, the geosciences and other science, technology, engineering, and math programs. We describe and report the preliminary results of a 1-wk Geosciences Exploration Summer Program in the College of Geosciences at Texas A&M…

Despite a great increase in the numbers of students enrolling in higher education, specifically at community colleges, the successful completion rates for these students has remained static since the 1970s. When reviewing strategies to increase student retention and successful completion, the Student Success Course (SSC) has emerged as a promising…

This article seeks to determine whether 2 common management strategies, representative bureaucracy and personnel stability, can be used in combination with each other in order to improve educational policy outcomes for Latinos. Using data from Texas school districts from 1994 to 2010 and a cross-sectional longitudinal research design, I find that…

This quasi-experimental research study evaluated two intact undergraduate engineering statics classes at a private university in Texas. Students in the control group received traditional lecture, readings and homework assignments. Those in the experimental group also were given access to a complete set of online video lectures and videos…

As research today is often required to validate innovative aspects of education, David Sobel's analysis of the SEER report makes quantitative sense of nature education and its ability to improve learning. Test scores increase, attendance surges, language arts assessments show richer self-expression, speaking skills gain a community cause, math…

This case describes the confrontational relationship between four trustees on the San Antonio School Board and the San Antonio School District's superintendent Diana Lam, a nationally recognized school reformer, who came to San Antonio in 1994. The case includes a dramatic board meeting where a closely divided board meets to buy out Lam's…

We use visualization to find patterns in educational data. We represent student scores from high-stakes exams as flow vectors in fluids, define two types of streamlines and trajectories, and show that differences between streamlines and trajectories are due to regression to the mean. This issue is significant because it determines how quickly…

This research examines the effectiveness of early intervention on academic success for at-risk students. An intervention program is implemented in a minority serving public university by providing counseling and advising to academically at-risk students. Student performance is monitored and evaluated to explore whether early intervention impacts…

The Texas statewide assessment of academic skills in 1997 indicated that >55 % of the student population failed to master the mathematics objectives set by the test criteria and 42 % of the mathematics teachers at the secondary level in the East Texas region were categorized as underqualified to teach mathematics at that level. The issue of…

The most effective pedagogies are those that foster students' metacognition and their learning effectiveness. This paper presents a new model of activity-based learning in which students construct knowledge using practices that include constructs of engagement, motivation, and affect that drive deeper processing and higher levels of metacognitive…

This research examined the impact of preservice teachers delivering individualized instruction of basic computer skills to at-risk, ethnic minority alternative high school students in an urban school district in South Texas. The alternative high school students' achievement of computer skills, motivation to use computers, and self-efficacy as…