A decline in emphasis on teaching natural history in public schools means many American citizens — children and adults — know little about the part of the Earth they inhabit. To residents of Arizona’s southwest corner, the Sonoran Desert around them remains relatively unknown and unappreciated. The 16th-largest desert in the world has one of the most varied biomes of any desert on the planet. It includes the saguaro cactus (found nowhere but the Sonoran) and the only population of wild jaguars in the U.S.
Open education resources have benefits for instructors and students, including accessibility via the internet and affordability as compared to traditional textbooks. The digital format of OER also offers innovations not possible with hard-copy texts, including multimedia content and user interaction, that can increase student learning. Despite these advantages and increased awareness of OER in the education field, their adoption in U.S. higher education remains limited.
Latinx communities represent more than 18% of the U.S. population. But the most recent data from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics show that Latinxs account for only 8% of the nation’s science and engineering workforce; this despite two decades of efforts to broaden minority participation in those fields. Opportunities to make science and engineering activities visible, accessible and relevant remains a significant challenge, particularly for Latinx youth from lower-income communities.
The question of how character influences society and how education should shape character is critically important at a historical moment in which economic globalization, information availability, and technological innovation are changing how knowledge is defined, acquired and used. After the family, educational institutions are most responsible for shaping tomorrow’s citizens. In “The Moral Dimensions of Teaching,” John Goodlad writes that the profession of teaching must “...
"Building Leadership for Change through School Immersion" is an initiative of the Ministry of Education of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Its aim is to strengthen the values, skills, knowledge and attitudes of teachers, counselors and principals through university-led structured immersion in high-performing, English-speaking K–12 school systems.
Two-way dual language learning programs, known as TWI, use two languages for literacy and content instruction for all students, not only those learning to use English. The partner languages (often English and Spanish) are used over an extended period of time to present the same academic content and address the same standards as other educational programs. TWIs are regarded as one of the most effective ways of promoting biliteracy. But despite the inclusiveness inherent in TWIs, recent research shows that inequities still exist, says principal investigator Claudia Cervantes-Soon.