Recently, makerspaces have captured the imaginations of educators as resources for transforming school-based learning. Aligning informal making practices with the formal aims of the school curriculum, however, can present challenges. In this article, Philip Nichols and Kurt Salisbury show how educators in two very different contexts -- a suburban…

Recent scholarship on civic education has introduced some useful ways to engage students in learning about controversial topics, debating them, and participating in democratic life. However, while those are valuable tools for active citizenship, they're not sufficient. Democratic education should focus on issues that matter intensely to students'…

American high school students reflect their disinterest in school and classroom activities through increased disengagement and higher dropout rates. Narrowing our instructional strategies because of our increased focus on testing limits non-text-based activities at exactly the time when visual means dominate student learning. Approaching…

The author was startled by the carelessness and selectivity of Robert Slavin's comments, which give his words the ring of a promotional release rather than of intellectual reflection. He agrees that Slavin is accurate in saying that the scores on reading tests at P.S. 65 in the South Bronx improved during a period in which, among a number of other…

Research tells us we can learn complex tasks most easily if they are taught in "small sequential steps." This column is about the small sequential steps that unlocked the powers of digital photography, of portraiture, and of student creativity. The strategies and ideas described in this article came as a result of working with…

Lesson study, the dominant form of professional development for teachers in Japan, has spread rapidly in the U.S. since 1999. In this article, the authors discuss the growth and success of lesson study at Highlands Elementary School in California's San Mateo-Foster City School District and identify conditions needed for scale-up. They also discuss…

Herbert L. Foster has written a new book about teaching black youngsters in the inner city. A Kappan interviewer extracts some of his success secrets, among them the rules for life-or-death contests. (Editor)

The poor performance of students in America's urban high schools, both in absolute terms and in comparison with their more economically secure counterparts in suburban schools, is a critical issue for the country, and the opportunity for all students to learn mathematics has been heralded as the new "civil right." In a recent study of…

Urban education reformers are now abandoning basic skills instruction and emphasizing critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity. An autocratic "pedagogy of poverty" undermines reform efforts by forcing compliance without involving students in learning and self-discipline. Good teaching is happening whenever students are actively involved…