Project based learning (PBL) provides opportunities for teachers and students to create learning spaces that are authentic and relevant. Much of this work is taking place in STEM contexts, with few studies exploring PBL integration in English language arts (ELA) classrooms. In this co-design project, we collaborated with 13 9th grade ELA teachers…

This non-experimental study investigated the relationship of teachers' trust towards their administrators and student achievement. Ginsberg's (2003) survey, as modified from Smalt's (1997) Teachers' Analysis of Their Principals' Supervisory Styles (TAPES), was translated to an on-line assessment and emailed to teacher participants from three…

A random sample of 1,313 grades 7-9 Chinese language arts teachers in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taipei were surveyed about their instructional writing practices. When asked about their college, inservice, and personal preparation, three out of four teachers indicated that they were poorly prepared to teach writing. They were slightly…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how US school leaders and teachers make sense of multiple accountability policies, including the Common Core State Standards and teacher evaluation, and how this process relates to school priorities and classroom practice. Design/methodology/approach: This study uses a comparative case study…

This manuscript explores the power of using inquiry in a second-grade classroom to make students' understanding of citizenship more complex. It describes an inquiry unit in which students studied primary sources, engaged with fiction and nonfiction children's literature, and participated in interdisciplinary learning to further understand the…

Main idea and summary are essential elements of reading comprehension. We report results from Grades 4 and 5 student performance on two years of state-mandated standardized reading testing which indicate that students perform statistically significantly lower on main idea and summary questions on the tests than any other question category. In this…

This article explores the writing processes of 22 English education scholars over the course of 23 months, resulting in the 2018 publication of an updated National Council of Teachers of English position statement, Beliefs for Integrating Technology into the English Language Arts Classroom. Through a qualitative approach, authors investigated the…

The present article lies at the intersection of research on teacher cognitions and the rising importance of literary texts in second language learning. It is a qualitative analysis of teacher reports on integrating Language Arts (LA) in the context of New Senior Secondary (NSS) English Language Curriculum in Hong Kong. In particular, this study…

Helping principals improve their leadership practices is a common use of federal funds and one way to improve instruction and student achievement. This study sought to better understand the effectiveness of an intensive principal professional development program focused primarily on helping principals conduct structured observations of teachers'…

This research examines the specialized knowledge of reading comprehension articulated by 12 middle school English language arts teachers sampled from three different regions of the United States and representing various levels of teaching experience. Using detailed interviews, concept mapping, and think aloud methods, we identified salient…

Background/Context: While some commentators view education as a social mobility mechanism, many scholars argue that schools reproduce rather than challenge social inequality. A vast literature on the role of family background and educational stratification identifies various factors that help account for how schools contribute to reproducing…

The purpose of this study was to explore specific leadership practices of high school principals, as identified by teachers and principals, and these practices' relationship to student achievement in English language arts. The measurements used for student achievement in English language arts were the proficiency percentages on the 2016 New York…

This was an exploratory study that examined high school teachers' perspectives about their early experiences with the English language arts Common Core State Standards. The sources of data for the study included a survey and structured interviews. Twenty-three high school ELA teachers from one unified school district in Southern California…

The National Math + Science Initiative (NMSI) is a nonprofit organization committed to improving educational outcomes that traces its roots back to the early 1990s. NMSI's College Readiness Program (CRP) is a long-standing program with the goal of promoting STEM education in high schools to improve students' preparation for college. The three-year…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in English Language Arts seem to relegate fiction and poetry to the back shelf. This change in emphasis, favoring nonfiction, has an impact in the classroom. After districts and schools realign the curriculum, many English teachers feel compelled to put away some of their fiction and poetry units. One way to…