The purpose of this process evaluation was to evaluate how classroom teachers, campus administrators, and instructional staff differ in their perception of data usage for educational improvement in a large suburban Independent School District (ISD) in Southeast Texas. The researcher was granted permission by the superintendent of the school…

Although many have suggested the use of games to motivate active learning, studies that evaluate the learning outcomes of games with high school students are scarce. Here, we present the evaluation of the board game "Taphonomy: Dead and Fossilized" as an active learning tool to teach fossilization and Earth systems thinking with rising…

Written expression curriculum-based measurement (WE-CBM) is a formative assessment approach for screening and progress monitoring. To extend evaluation of WE-CBM, we compared hand-calculated and automated scoring approaches in relation to the number of screening samples needed per student for valid scores, the long-term predictive validity and…

Written expression curriculum-based measurement (WE-CBM) is a formative assessment approach for screening and progress monitoring. To extend evaluation of WE-CBM, we compared hand-calculated and automated scoring approaches in relation to the number of screening samples needed per student for valid scores, the long-term predictive validity and…

Formal leadership development programs enhance what students learn in the classroom by giving them powerful tools for personal and professional success. They are also a differentiator for many institutions. They help schools attract more high-ability students, distinguish themselves from peer institutions, and increase the value of a student's…

The purpose of this study was to examine how elementary pre-service teachers' transferred mathematics instructional practices learned in a methods course at the university to a field-based classroom setting using response to intervention (RTI) methodology. Pre-service teachers (PSTs) implemented a required Mathematics Interaction Project with…

This study focused on preservice secondary teacher's use of the Understanding by Design (UbD), framework to create effective, engaging lessons for their future secondary level students. The subjects consisted of 69 secondary pre-service secondary education majors at a Texas University who were enrolled in a required course for admission into the…

This essay reports on a writing-based formative assessment of a university-wide initiative to enhance students' global learning. Our mixed (and unanticipated) results show the need for enhanced expertise in writing assessment as well as for sustained partnerships among diverse institutional stakeholders so that public programming--from events…

The Center on Standards, Alignment, Instruction, and Learning (C-SAIL), examines how college- and career-readiness (CCR) standards are implemented, if they improve student learning, and what instructional tools measure and support their implementation. This brief presents findings from C-SAIL's Implementation Study, which uses interview and survey…

Scenario-based learning is an approach for student-centered learning used in the medical and legal fields, but is little used in liberal arts. In this study, I examine students' understanding and application of audience-centered writing techniques after a semester of formal scenario-based essays and problem-based activities. Comparing the grades…

In December 2015, President Barack Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which replaced No Child Left Behind (NCLB), as the nation's major law governing public schools. ESSA retains the requirement that states test all students in reading and math in grades three through eight and once in high school, as well as the requirement that…

A longitudinal study of the effects of an early childhood mathematics intervention was conducted in 2 private elementary schools in a large city in central Texas. The study included 377 participants in prekindergarten through fifth grades. Explicit non-inverted number names were taught in English and Spanish to prekindergarten and kindergarten…

Teachers' beliefs, professional development, access to hardware/software, and instructional contexts all influence teachers' use of technology (Ertmer et al., 2012; González-Carriedo & Esprívalo Harrell, 2018; Ottenbreit-Leftwich et al., 2010). The first three factors have been studied extensively, but additional research on the instructional…

Third grade is a critical checkpoint in a child's educational journey. By the end of third grade, children need literacy skills that prepare them for increasing curriculum demands in fourth grade and beyond. Students who are not reading on grade level by this point are significantly more likely to drop out of high school or fail to graduate on…

The study analyzed whether participation in a multisensory, structured language intervention for students identified with dyslexia yielded any relationship to progress in reading comprehension as measured on state-mandated assessments of reading comprehension. The study analyzed both the amount of progress made in the curriculum, as well as, the…