Executive functions, which begin developing in early childhood, are necessary for the tasks of daily life, such as decision making and planning. Despite their early development, often without teaching, many teens with disabilities need explicit instruction to acquire and apply executive functions each day. Gaps in executive functions directly…

Topics presented in content area courses at the secondary level are often comprised of specialized and/or multiple-meaning vocabulary terms that can challenge students' understanding. Additionally, gaps in relevant knowledge from prior learning experiences in earlier grade levels may further impede comprehension of content area concepts. This is…

This teaching tip aims to build awareness of using a text's structure as a framework for building students' reading comprehension. The authors detail the Framework for Accelerating the Strategic Comprehension of Text (FASCT) to support elementary students reading comprehension abilities by explicitly teaching students to use the structure of a…

This teaching tip aims to build awareness of using a text's structure as a framework for building students' reading comprehension. The authors detail the Framework for Accelerating the Strategic Comprehension of Text (FASCT) to support elementary students reading comprehension abilities by explicitly teaching students to use the structure of a…

After 30 years of practicing, researching, and teaching project-based learning (PBL), Steven Wolk offers insight into what he has learned. He discusses what PBL is and responds to common misunderstandings about how it works. He describes how PBL units are structured, the role of direct instruction in PBL, how students learn content and skills…

Michael Taylor begins his piece by reminding us that writing great history essays is hard. He compares the process to running a marathon, and his central thesis is that, just as the best training for running a marathon is not running marathons, so the way to encourage students to produce great essays is not writing more and more essays. Instead…

In this article, the authors encourage readers to get their minds IN the gutters--the literal gutters of graphic novels, that is. Gutters, one of many graphic novel text features, provide visual and metacognitive insight readers must use to make meaning as they read. Teachers must provide explicit instruction regarding these features and other…

Whether to embrace "flipped" pedagogy or to problem solve during a pandemic, many teachers utilize video to deliver instruction to students. Watching a video can be a passive activity without a person or a tool to facilitate active engagement. As a result, many teachers find the need to look for tools, methods, and platforms to engage…

The authors think it is likely that there is no 'right' way to teach. They believe that some teaching approaches work better in some situations to achieve some goals. In this article the authors are proposing that the best way to improve primary science is for colleagues with different views to talk more -- and listen more. Specifically, the…

Some children come to school with a smaller vocabulary than their peers. If children do not have knowledge of the meaning of the words they read in texts, they will fail to comprehend those texts and struggle to keep up with their peers. This is critical because the link between vocabulary and comprehension is very clear (Sticht et al., 1974, as…

Not enough information on instructional practices specific for students with dyslexia in PE has been published. Given dyslexia's prevalence in the population, and the impact it has on students holistic learning, there is a tremendous need for teacher training about "best practices" when teaching those with dyslexia in all subjects,…

In the field of writing center research there is a paucity of information regarding tutoring students with dyslexia. This comes as no surprise considering it is only in the last 50 years that there has been a conscious effort to include those who have exceptionalities in all areas of education. In addition to a lack of research and training there…

Explicit instruction is a teaching model that demonstrates to students what to do and how to do it. One purpose of ideology is to focus the who, what, when, where, and why of a disciplinary field. Trained home economists make a sustained commitment to the core ideology of home economics. Mechanisms for identifying locally relevant challenges faced…

Educators are constantly faced with the question of how to best present material that is optimally "learnable" for the different students they are trying to reach. The instructional approach selected is based on the intention of the learning. In general, two main approaches are used in today's instruction: explicit instruction or…

In the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, some who were unable to cope with the devastation and the failure to prevent them turned to alternative explanations as to how and why these attacks occurred. Coinciding with the growth of the internet, hyper-partisan news sources, and misinformation, a vast number of 9/11 conspiracy theories emerged…