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This study was designed to investigate the usefulness of the Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) program as a nontraditional tool for identification of giftedness in educationally disadvantaged students. Twenty-three HOTS students were studied. The comparison group consisted of eight students. This study used the quasi-experimental pre-posttest design. Pre and post tests of the Cognitive Abilities Test (Cog AT) were administered to both groups. The HOTS group was given the Woodcock Johnson Psych-educational Battery: Part One (W-J) and rated on a teacher's checklist before and after treatment. Treatment consisted of sixty hours of HOTS instruction. The t Test for dependent samples was used to analyze all the data to determine any significant gains. Significant growth was noted with the HOTS group in the quantitative and Nonverbal areas as well as in all the W-J subtests. The HOTS program is useful in advancing students' thinking skills in a short period of time. Further research is warranted to determine if greater gains would be achieved through a larger sampling and longer study.

This study addressed four questions about bilingual first graders' Spanish and English retellings. First, how do their retellings change over the period of one school year? Second, how do their own Spanish and English retellings of the same story compare and contrast? Third, do English retellings influence Spanish retellings? Fourth, do Spanish retellings influence English retellings? The retellings were scored using a holistic measure. Nine bilingual first grade students were placed in two experimental groups based on teacher observation. The groups were comprised of a heterogenous mix of students and were similar to each other. The first graders' Spanish and English retellings improved over the school year. Their Spanish retellings consistently scored higher than their English retellings. The findings did not indicate an influence of Spanish retellings on English retellings. There was no influence of English retellings on Spanish retellings, except in one domain of the measure used.

Fifty-five fathers and 90 mothers in Taiwan were studied to test if there were any parental factors related to their parenting knowledge, knowledge of child development, and childrearing involvement. The data were collected by the Personal Information Questionnaire, Parenting Knowledge Questionnaire, Knowledge of Child Development Inventory, and Childrearing involvement Questionnaire. The parents' educational level, parental occupation, and parenting training experience were found to be positively related to the parents' level of parenting knowledge, knowledge of child development, and childrearing involvement. Positive relationships were also indicated between the annual family income of parents and their level of parenting knowledge, knowledge of child development. However, the parental age and the parents' childrearing experience existed negative relationships with their level of parenting knowledge and childrearing involvement in the study.

<p>Research has shown that there is a strong link between reading comprehension and vocabulary, yet many children lack the required vocabulary needed to perform adequately on reading comprehension assessments. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the teaching of Larry Bell&rsquo;s 12 Powerful Words vocabulary program in order to raise third, fourth and fifth grade test scores on the North Carolina Reading Comprehension End-of-Grade Assessments. This study surveyed third, fourth and fifth grade teachers concerning their beliefs of the efficacy of this vocabulary program, surveyed third, fourth and fifth grade students to determine their knowledge of these 12 words, and tallied the occurrence of these 12 words on formative and summative assessments administered within the district. A regression analysis was performed to determine if there was a relationship between teachers&rsquo; perceptions and student performance on the North Carolina Reading Comprehension End-of-Grade Assessments. Results of the regression analysis showed no significant relationship between teachers&rsquo; beliefs of the value of teaching these 12 words and students&rsquo; mean scores across 12 years of third, fourth and fifth grade North Carolina Reading Comprehension End-of-Grade Assessments in the district of study. Results of the word searches indicate that only five of these 12 words occurred frequently enough to impact reading assessments. An implication of this study is that teaching and learning a short list of vocabulary words may not result in higher scores on reading comprehension assessments. </p>

<p> Time-based reform proposals are founded on the assumption that more time in school will produce great learning outcomes. Research shows that when schools adopt time-based reform initiatives, there are certain considerations that they should make and methods they should follow to ensure the change produces the outcomes intended. This was not the case in a local Archdiocese where a calendar extension was adopted by several elementary schools. </p><p> This qualitative case study focused on the adoption of a calendar extension at one Catholic elementary school. The researcher gathered data from the pastor, principal, teachers, parents, and students to determine how these stakeholders envisioned the outcomes of this change, how they perceived the time was being used for curricular, co-curricular, and extra-curricular purposes, and the challenges and opportunities that they felt existed after three years of implementation. Data collected over a four-month period included classroom observations, stakeholder interviews, focus group meetings, and document analysis. </p><p> An inductive analysis of the data collected was used to determine emergent themes and domains within the school. The seven themes that emerged include: decision making, planning and implementation, advantages, financial motivations, the culture of teaching, leadership, challenges and complications of the extended calendar. </p><p> Recommendations include the need for school leaders to familiarize themselves with change management techniques including setting a shared vision, establishing a collaborative implementation plan, and developing a system of assessment prior to embarking on school reform.</p>

<p> Current population trends have revealed a huge influx of non-native English speaking students in the mainstream classroom across the United States. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore what mainstream teachers are doing to meet the academic needs of English Learners (ELs) in their classrooms on a daily basis. The researcher used semi-structured open-ended interview questions in order to gather data to answer five research questions; 1) How do teachers use data to plan for differentiated instruction? 2) How do teachers describe their experiences with differentiated instruction methods in planning reading lessons? 3) What processes do teachers go through when differentiating process, content and product during differentiated instruction? 4) What training do teachers receive to help them become effective at teaching EL students? 5) What challenges do teachers have when using differentiated instruction? Participants of the study were purposefully selected from a title one school in the Southeastern, United States with a high population of ELs. In order to be eligible to participate within the study teachers were required to teach either the third, fourth or fifth grade and have had at least 80% of their EL students meet expectations on the state mandated test in reading. The data analysis revealed six themes; 1) Collaboration 2) A huge inventory of research bases instructional strategies 3) Data-driven instruction 4) Well trained 5) Rigor 6) Learning community (7) Courage and Resilience Findings also suggested that differentiation of choice as well as interest is essential for creating an environment to meet the academic needs of ELs. Further perceptions included; using differentiation in the mainstream classroom was time- consuming, difficult to plan for, and often was met with a lack of resources. Even though, participants identified these challenges they felt that differentiated instruction was the only way to meet the academic needs of ELs. Recommendations for further study included broadening the research study to include classroom observations as well as teachers who are new to teaching ELs in the mainstream classroom setting. Further recommendations for qualitative studies included EL student perceptions of their successes and failures when participating differentiated instruction in the mainstream classroom.</p>

Limitation theories in developmental psychology have had a profound effect on educational practice; namely, theories that have been widely used to define what is developmentally inappropriate for children to do. Current research is presented to suggest new ways to think about the abilities of children and to challenge the popular applications of limitation theories. Modal theory as understood by reformed Christian philosophies is presented in a framework to view human development. The result is a new polycultural (cosmonomically diverse) theory of human development. Holistic education is investigated as a possible ally by comparing and contrasting it to the proposed theory and its application to education. Finally, the image and metaphor of a garden are introduced to enhance this polycultural theory and to offer application with suggestions for further study.

<p> As school enrollments across the United States include increasing numbers of students of color, the number of administrators of color remains disproportionate. In California school districts, where a large percentage of students are Latino and Latina, Latino and Latina principals remain rare. While studies have suggested why Latinos and Latinas do not enter educational leadership, fewer have examined why they do elect to enter the field. This ethnographic exploratory study examines factors that led Latino and Latina educators to enter administrative leadership preparation programs with the goal of becoming school principals. The sample includes interviews with seven Latino and Latina elementary school principals from a large urban school district in California. The study uses Freire&rsquo;s concepts of banking, conscientization, and praxis as a lens to synthesize the findings. The investigation provides insight regarding how school districts and colleges of education can consider targeted recruitment of Latino and Latina leaders to increase the candidate pool for educational leadership and close the disproportionate ethnic gap between who attends California public schools and who leads them. The research proposes a possible working model for the development, recruitment and growth of the leadership pipeline in California schools. Lastly, this study is a call to action for Latinos and Latinas to consider becoming active participants in the narrative that defines them in the educational landscape of the United States. Issues of race, gender, socio-economic status, language, politics, and immigration are discussed as factors that contribute to the development of Latinos and Latinas in school leadership.</p>

The central focus of this research is the implementation of curriculum innovation: this is examined by looking in detail at one particular innovation, the Schools Council project, Science 5/13, and attempting to isolate factors affecting its use. The research has been undertaken in a sample of those schools who tried out the project materials in the initial trial stages. These schools were contacted a number of years after the completion of the trials to examine the development of the project in the post trial period.