This study examined the alignment of the UMT Educational Leadership Program with the Tennessee Administrator Evaluation Rubric, the extent in which its graduates felt prepared to meet each standard of the Tennessee Administrator Evaluation Rubric, and its impact on graduates' preparedness for leadership. Using a mixed-methods design, the…

Over the past several years, content experts, psychometricians, and researchers have been hard at work developing, refining, and studying the digital SAT. The work is grounded in foundational best practices and advances in measurement and assessment design, with fairness for students informing all of the work done. This paper shares learnings from…

Community colleges are well-positioned to provide formal education and early field experiences to Early Childhood Education (ECE) teachers, particularly the non-traditional students who are balancing multiple obligations of family, work, and education. The increasing demand for online coursework formats by community college students has grown…

This article provides a description of three seventh grade English teachers' attempt to augment creativity, reading, and deep understanding, and the standards they used to come up with five essential questions surrounding an eight-week unit on poetry. Each of these questions helps to address the school standards and the Common Core State Standards…

This study examined the productive disposition of pre-algebra students who demonstrated similar knowledge of the focal content but varied in other academic behaviors expected in the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM). Specifically, the study considered students' attention to precision when critiquing a peer's work. The…

Student-centered learning encompasses four overlapping and complementary principles (JFF, 2014): competency-based progression, personalization, flexibility in where and when learning takes place, and facilitation of key skills and dispositions such as agency and ownership. To date, few studies have attempted to quantitatively characterize…

This study was conducted to examine the differences in high school biology achievement and student affect towards teacher and content from the use of individualized correctives as part of mastery learning. An experimental pretest-posttest with control group design was used during the fall 2011 semester. Over a thirteen-week period, 99 students in…

Millions of children around the world are out of school due to conflict, poverty, lack of education systems and infrastructure, and other issues. Educating children living in difficult contexts is the best way to empower them with the knowledge and competencies to rise to their full potential despite the challenges they face. Dedicated and…

Background: Much of the research related to Teach For America (TFA) is related to the concerns surrounding whether such teachers should assume primary teaching responsibility and whether alternatively certified teachers are effective in the classroom. This research study takes a different approach and moves the conversation into a new domain of…

Every day in classrooms across the country teachers are using district, state, and federal standards and assessments to prove their effectiveness, monitor students' progress, and understand students' strengths and needs. Jobs depend on student achievement, and in today's age of accountability, assessment scores define what students…

The purpose of this qualitative research study was to discover the influence of a student achievement program implemented at one large urban high school that employed extrinsic motivation to promote student achievement on state assessments. Using organismic integration theory as the theoretical framework, 19 randomly selected students participated…

The effectiveness of leadership preparation programs has been contested for a number of years. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of the identified components that exist within a "high-quality" principal preparation program through the lenses of the members of a principalship cohort at a university-based…

This study focuses on pre-service teachers' perspectives regarding how the process of completing the Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT) affected them academically, professionally, and personally. Two cohorts participated in this year-two study. Pre-service teachers' perspectives were acquired using a survey instrument comprised…

The Council of Chief State School Officers' "Accommodations Manual: How to Select, Administer, and Evaluate the Use of Accommodations for Instruction and Assessment of Students with Disabilities" was first developed to establish guidelines for states to use for the selection, administration, and evaluation of accommodations for…

"Authenticity," "intrinsic motivation," "confidence," and "student choice." More than just jargon, these ideas are essential for student achievement. Facing the pressures of mandated standards and assessments, teachers often replace activities that allow for student choice and multiple outcomes with…