Mandates to improve curriculum and instruction and incorporate technology in teaching U.S. K-12 students have failed to improve math proficiency as measured by standardized assessments. Still, 40-60% need remedial coursework in college. Past efforts have focused on incorporating specific technologies. The SAMR approach redirects the effort to…

Promoting Adolescents' Comprehension of Text (PACT) is a text- and discourse-based set of instructional practices that engage students with disciplinary texts as a means of building content knowledge and improving reading comprehension. PACT)s "efficacy" has been the subject of extensive previous trials. The purpose of this study was to…

The purpose of this study was to prove to what degree using the arts could increase developing student critical thinking skills. The thesis is based on Paul, Elder, and Bartell assertion that intensive arts training, can prepare students for life and work by developing in them the general skills and attitudes, the habits of heart and mind they…

The Computer Information and Technology Department (CIT) program of Purdue University is offered at our regional campus in Columbus, Indiana. Like many programs throughout the country, we face issues in recruiting new students. Over the last seven to eight years, we have faced declining enrollment, even as our main campus at West Lafayette saw…

This study contributes knowledge about how a digital badge system integrated into an online, subject-matter-specific, and competency-based professional development (PD) program affected teachers' experiences with and perceptions of the program activities. The report presents findings from a one-year exploratory study of an online PD program, and…

The purpose of this research was twofold: to explore students' thoughts of diversity in the U.S. and to determine how participation in a mathematics multicultural education activity affects student metacognition. The specific research questions for this study were: (1) How does participation in a multicultural education activity change middle…

This cross-site, collaborative study focused on the instructional practices of three middle school art teachers from Arizona, Indiana, and New York. The researchers found similarities as well as differences among the teachers' strategies. At all three sites, emphasis was on curriculum related to their students' lives, developing technical skills,…

Activities and resources developed for Indiana middle school teachers to use for instruction about Native Americans are included in this thematic instruction kit. The resource includes a film review, ideas for field trips, vocabulary words, and geographical information. Each activity lists materials, and directions, and identifies an arts…

In 1988 Saint Mary's College received a grant from Lilly Endowment, Inc. to create a program to improve the quality of science education in the local public and private schools. As part of applying that grant we created one-week summer work-shops for elementary and middle school teachers (K-8) based on guided inquiry methods of education. Each…

Papers in this volume are: "The Origin, Grittner); "What We Can Learn from Those Who Avoid Us: Why Some Students Do Not Study Foreign Language" (Mary Ann Pederson); "Exploring Student Beliefs about Language Learning" (Christine M. Campbell, and others); "Whole Language and Foreign Language Proficiency: Natural…