Current Issues in Education (E-Journal, Arizona State University)
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Advocacy for the Efficacy and Reinstatement of Funding Federal Even Start Family Literacy Grant Programs
Get PDFThe Even Start Family Literacy model builds coalitions of community partners that build learning communities throughout our nation. The problem for stakeholders in family literacy programs is how to continue funding to encourage success and sustainability of programs. The focus of the study was twofold: 1) the importance of using data from national studies to make program improvements 2) the importance of making program improvement prior to reducing or rescinding funding for the Even Start Family Literacy Program. This quantitative study identified program, participant, and funding characteristics that state and local educators can target for program improvement. Programs must demonstrate measurable outcomes of success for adults and children
Filling in the implementation gap? Problems in the Greek educational system--An evidence-based explanatory framework and critical reflections
Get PDFThe Greek educational system the last 50 years recounts among numerous reformations and counterreformations. All the continuous changes seem not to be characterized of a clearly defined operational aims and rational continuity. Nowadays Educators, pupils, university students, parents, politicians and citizens criticize various structural and functional aspects of the Greek educational system. The main scope of that piece of research is to record and to analyze the problems of the Greek educational system according to the opinions of Greek undergraduate students. We asked from 400 undergraduate students the written answers to the following question: “According to your opinion which are the main problems of the Greek educational system?. The written answers have been analyzed according to the methodological standards of the classical thematic content analysis. 1468 statements have been summarized and taxonomized in ten main thematic categories. The Cohen test showed a high degree of taxonomic accordance among the reviewer of the written texts (κ=0,97). The content analysis showed that statements can be categorized in 7 main thematic categories
Editorial & Ejournals Today: Forerunners of the Unrealized Potential of the Digital Medium
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This study uses the foreign language classroom to examine students' beliefs about learning, perceptions of goal attainment, and motivation to continue language study. Survey and interview results indicated students’ attributions for success and failure and their expectations for certain subjects’ learnability played a role in the relationship between goal attainment and volition. It appears that over-effaciousness negatively affected student motivation. For other students who felt they were "bad at languages," their negative beliefs increased their motivation to study. Suggestions for how these results apply to other disciplines and interventions for increasing student motivation are offered
Selecting one story and hiding others: How AYP chooses the portrayal of a school
Get PDFThis article discusses how the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) accountability mechanism of No Child Left Behind makes use of supposedly objective standardized test scores to describe schools in a certain way when the very same results could serve to draw very different conclusions. Examining the proficiency scores of students from a specific middle school that is determined to be unequivocally failing according to AYP, the article shows how the same data could be used to characterize this school in ways that are more complex and emphasize its possible accomplishments
Improving Student Engagement
Get PDFThis paper reviews research literature in the area of student engagement to discover curricular and pedagogical ideas educators might successfully use to better engage student learning. Student engagement has historically focused upon increasing achievement, positive behaviors, and a sense of belonging to help students remain in school. The authors suggest that work in student engagement has grown from a focus upon disengaged students (who are not learning) to engaged learners (who are learning) and theorize that older work attempted to reshape ârenegadeâ students into schooling, but current work revises schools to fit student needs
What Makes it Easy or Hard for You to Do Your Homework? An Account of Newcomer Immigrant Youthsâ Afterschool Academic Lives
Get PDFWhile substantial research has focused on homework in the lives of native-born English-speaking students, research on immigrant students’ homework experiences remains scarce. A goal of this study was to describe the homework experiences of newcomer immigrant students, drawing from a project on how individual, family, and school characteristics shape these youths’ homework experiences. Focus groups and surveys were conducted with newcomer students (N=192) in an urban high school. Survey data were used to determine the prevalence of homework facilitators and impediments students experienced; focus group data were examined to develop an enhanced understanding of the contexts in which students encounter various facilitators and impediments. Understanding course materials, i.e. having academic English proficiency to comprehend course contents, was a key determinant in whether students experienced homework as easy or difficult. Results can inform ways in which home, school, and after-school settings may be structured to facilitate immigrant youths’ homework completion
Curriculum Integration and Adaptation: Individualizing Pedagogy for Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Students
Get PDFIn the United States, populations identified as linguistically and culturally diverse (LCD) are increasing at the fastest rate in public schools (Samway & McKeon, 2007). LCD students have not performed as well as their monolingual and/or affluent peers on state mandated assessments. No Child Left Behind Act (2001) stressed this disparity as âthe achievement gap,â resulting in highly structured curricular demands from districts forcing teachers to grapple between those demands and meeting the academic and cultural needs of LCD students. Using case-study methodology, this research explored how teachersâ beliefs about teaching and learning influence curriculum decision-making for LCD students. Through the triangulation of interviews, observations, and document analysis, three teachers and their students in a low-income, urban, k-4 school in a predominantly Spanish-speaking community was investigated. Participants integrated and adapted curriculum based on personal beliefs about teaching and learning, the needs of their LCD students, and the mandated curriculum
Understanding Multicultural Education
Get PDFWith the shifting cultural texture and demographics of the United States (Banks, 2006b; Irvine, 2003), redefining multicultural education has become imperative. There are many views on the benefits and/or shortcomings of the multiculturalization of education. The question is not whether a multicultural education should be adopted but it is rather what we understand from multicultural education and how we are going to initiate such a reform within an educational system when we cannot even define 'multicultural.’ “The awareness of one’s own assumptions, prejudices and stereotypes is a first step to be able to positively interact and learn from others. In this process lies the essence of intercultural learning” (Martins, 2008, p. 203). This paper attempts to define (and redefine) multicultural education, explain its shortcomings, and offer recommendations for further discussion
School Improvement Grants: Ransoming Title I Schools in Distress
Get PDFIn August 2009, the U.S. Department of Education announced opportunities for states and local educational agencies to vie for $3.5 billion in Title I School Improvement Grants targeted at turning around or closing down chronically low-achieving schools. To qualify for a portion of these funds, school districts were required to implement one of four remedies at schools where students chronically demonstrated poor academic performance. Evidence is provided showing that the mandated interventions are highly speculative, minimally effective, and overly restrictive
Teacher Collaboration: Implications for New Mathematics Teachers
Get PDFOne increasingly popular way of supporting new teachers is through the use of mentoring. New teachers are often paired with mentors as one of a number of supports meant to aid new teachers as they begin their career. The various types of mentoring range from school based mentors assigned by the school to specialty mentors, such as math coaches. Examples of other types of supports that are thought of as separate from formal mentoring are lesson studies, professional development schools, professional development workshops supported by local universities, teacher networks and sponsored professional development. Given the popularity of policies promoting support for new teachers, we explore specific supports for new teachers in addition to characteristics of these supports by focusing on two new alternatively certified mathematics teachers in New York City. Through observations and both formal and informal interviews that span a year, we gained insight into the various influences on these two teachersâ practice in mathematics and considered how these might inform future practices aimed at supporting new teachers