Secondary Education Commons^™

Strategies For Building Relationships In The Secondary English Language Arts Classroom, Emily S. Nipper

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

Building positive relationships with students is at the forefront of good teaching practices. While secondary teachers in the English language arts (ELA) classroom are increasingly overwhelmed with demands to improve literacy and test scores, positive relationships can help students feel supported in the classroom and more engaged in learning, which can help prevent them from demonstrating negative behaviors. Drawing on research on developing and valuing positive relationships in secondary classrooms, this article translates research into practice by examining how teachers can use discipline-specific strategies to foster supportive and positive relationships with students.

Facilitating Peer Tutoring In Islamic Religious Education: A Multiple-Case Study Of Students’ Affective Experiences, Izzatul Mahya, Purnomo Purnomo, Nur Faizatul Zehan Saari

Jurnal Pendidikan dan Pembelajaran

Background: In Islamic Religious Education in junior high schools, students may feel afraid, embarrassed, or lacking in confidence when asking questions. How peer tutoring is facilitated and experienced affectively remains little studied in this subject.

Objectives: This study describes how teachers and peer tutors enact facilitation, how the tutor and the tutee relate it to their affective experiences, and how tutor-tutee familiarity shapes these experiences.

Methods: A qualitative multiple-case study was conducted at a public junior high school and a madrasah tsanawiyah. Six participants (one teacher, one tutor, and one tutee per site) were purposively selected. Data were collected through …

Redefining “Back To Basics:” Critical Place-Based Education As Essential Practice, Jeffrey Austin, Rosalyn D. Shahid

Michigan Reading Journal

This article explores how an environmental justice-centered summer program in Wayne County, Michigan, one of the areas most impacted by environmental harm in the United States, uses storytelling, critical place-based education practices, teen advocacy frameworks and local curriculum development to push back on current “back-to-basics” education mandates, including scripted curriculum, skills-dominant instruction, and decontextualized learning.  Using the MAISA GELN Disciplinary Literacy Essentials: Grades 6-12 as a guide, we attempt to redefine what ought to be seen as “basic” in schools to ensure that students can be a meaningful part of building a more just, equitable, and sustainable future for our …

Korelasi Foreign Language Anxiety Dengan Performansi Berbicara Bahasa Mandarin Peserta Didik Sma Laboratorium Universitas Negeri Malang, Kharisma Budi Setyawati, Lukluk Ul Muyassaroh, Herri Akhmad Bukhori

Journal of Language, Literature, and Arts

This study aims to describe the Mandarin speaking performance of eleventh-grade IBB students at the Laboratory High School of Universitas Negeri Malang and to examine the relationship between foreign language anxiety (FLA) and Mandarin speaking performance. A quantitative correlational design was applied to 24 students selected through total sampling. Anxiety levels were measured using an adapted Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS; Horwitz et al., 1986), while speaking performance was assessed through role-play dialogues scored with an analytic rubric. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, the Shapiro-Wilk normality test, a linearity test, and Pearson product-moment correlation. Students’ FLA fell into …

Launching With Intent: How Three Simple Classroom Modifications Raised Assessment Scores By 10%, Arren Swift

Teaching Social Studies in the Peach State

This action research study evaluated the impact of three targeted instructional modifications designed to address a 9% decline in proficient and distinguished student performance on the Georgia Milestones End-of-Course (EOC) Assessment in High School U.S. History. Building upon district leadership initiatives, an instructional team implemented a triad of evidence-based interventions across 15 units: (a) transitioning from digital assessment platforms to traditional paper-and-pencil testing to protect academic integrity, (b) implementing "Launching with Intent" vocabulary bell-ringers utilizing Frayer models and interactive word walls, and (c) embedding weekly 10-item formative unit quizzes to leverage retrieval practice and memory reconsolidation. Comparative data analysis demonstrated …

Grandma's Hands, Eric Rand

Teaching Social Studies in the Peach State

The purpose of this collaborative community based cookbook project is to archive personal memories, recipes, and experiences that contribute to the story of America. Educators are positioning students to become local historians by interacting with elders in their families or communities retrieving lost or unknown narratives regarding the different dishes. This manuscript provides educators with detailed teacher notes through 4 phases to help them and students work through the semester on the project building on additional knowledge learned through traditional course work. Students will use technology like voice recorders, and graphic design platforms to ground their finished product. Moreover educators …

Using Scenario-Based Generative Ai In A Social Studies Methods Course, Timothy Lintner, Ellis Reeves

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

Artificial intelligence (AI) is quickly transforming the landscape of educator preparation. This shift is especially evident in social studies. As emerging technologies like AI reshape how social studies is taught and learned, it is essential to incorporate them into course design and student outcomes. Simply put, we must ensure that the next generation of social studies educators can effectively use AI to create real-world, scenario-based learning experiences that foster inquiry and encourage student action-taking. This article examines how AI-supported, scenario-based learning was strategically integrated into a secondary social studies methods course at the University of South Carolina Aiken. From concept …

‘There Is No Continuity’: Assessment Of Pre-Service Teachers' Ability To Analyse Historical Sources In Two Ghanaian Public Universities, Anitha Oforiwah Adu-Boahen

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

The paper examined student-teachers’ understanding of change and continuity in History. Using a convergent parallel mixed method approach, one hundred and thirty-five (135) student-teachers from two public universities examined images depicting classroom settings in Ghana’s educational system from different periods. Respondents were expected to show and explain the continuities and changes in the different periods in Ghanaian history. They were to focus on the disparities in ‘change’ and ‘continuities’ in classroom settings in the Ghanaian educational system over time. Again, student-teachers were expected to transform their knowledge of these changes into historical understanding by writing an interpretation from the sources. …

Using The Past To Better Understand The Present: Contextualizing Today’S History Wars, For Ourselves And For Our Students, Bonnie Laughlin-Schultz

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

This essay considers our contemporary moment in the context of the long history of the so-called "history wars" in the United States. It identifies four historical moments with ties to the present, and makes use of primary documents to discuss each time period. It also considers the ways in which historical activists such as Frederick Douglass and W. E. B. Du Bois advocated for honest history in the past, and the ways in which we might argue for nuanced historical thinking in the present. Teachers may find the documents of use for their own classrooms, and a brief appendix at …

Again And Again Of “Never Again”: Teaching Holocaust And Genocide Literature In Ela, Sarah J. Donovan

Virginia English Journal

This article explores the evolution of genocide education in the secondary ELA classroom, tracing how foundational Holocaust literature has expanded into a broader, transnational framework of global witness. Drawing on two decades of teaching experience, the author argues that while the Holocaust canon remains essential to genocide education, contemporary classrooms also require literature that helps students engage ongoing and intergenerational atrocities in places such as Rwanda, Ukraine, Sudan, and Gaza. The article examines how teachers can thoughtfully adapt established literacy structures—such as rhetorical reading, literature circles, and response journals—into practices of ethical witnessing that center critical empathy, harm, healing, and …

Preliminary Evidence Of Systems Thinking Skills In Gamelan-Based Ethnoscience Booklet-Integrated Collaborative Problem Solving, Ayu Nuryani Aprilia, Suciati Suciati

Jurnal Pendidikan Sains

Students’ systems thinking skills (STS) can be difficult to develop when science learning provides limited opportunities to connect relationships among system components with contextual phenomena. Integrating local wisdom into learning materials, such as a gamelan-based ethnoscience booklet, may provide a meaningful context for developing these skills. This study aimed to compare students’ STS performance, adjusted for pretest scores, between a class receiving Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) instruction integrated with a gamelan-based ethnoscience booklet and a class receiving CPS instruction alone. This quantitative study employed a pretest–posttest control group design with class-level random allocation of treatment and involved 56 Grade VIII …

‘I’Ve Always Been On Call For My Sister’: An Exploration Of The Impact Of Having A Sibling With A Life Limiting Condition On The Experience Of Education, Emily Joanne Pinn

Plymouth Interdisciplinary Education Open Journal

There are currently approximately 99,000 babies, children and young people living with life-limiting conditions (LLCs) in the UK alone (Together for Short Lives, 2025b). Many of these young people will have siblings who are navigating the opportunities and challenges of having a sibling with an LLC. Despite this, there is a stark lack of research investigating the impact of being one of these siblings. As a result, this combined autoethnographic and qualitative enquiry will aim to provide an insight into how young people’s experiences of being a young carer to a sibling with an LLC impacted different elements of their …

Evaluation Of Land Suitability In The Watu Ondo Waterfall Area Using The Analytical Hierarchy Process (Ahp) Method, Carina Nur Indah Lestari, Syamsul Bachri, Sugeng Utaya, Daudi Richard Malusu

Jurnal Pendidikan: Teori, Penelitian, dan Pengembangan

This study was motivated by the importance of utilizing land physical conditions as a basis for developing disaster mitigation education in natural tourist areas. The study aims to evaluate land suitability for disaster mitigation education in the Watu Ondo Waterfall area using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). A quantitative research method was employed, involving AHP weighting analysis of the parameters topography, rainfall, dry season duration, soil type, and land cover, followed by spatial overlay to generate a land suitability map. The results indicate that topography is the dominant factor with a weight of 47%, followed …

People Orientation And Thing Orientation In Business Majors: Implications For Assessing The Impacts Of Cross-Functional Business Program Curricula, Todd J. Hostager, David A. Christopher, Kristy J. Lauver, Christopher Knowles

International Journal for Business Education

Background/Introduction/Purpose:  Prior research documented significant differences in people orientation and thing orientation (PTO) based on type of major and sex.  This study examines a set of measures for helping business programs to assess whether they are producing graduates equipped to consider both people and things when making decisions, regardless of their major or sex.

Methods/Design:  Students in a strategic management capstone course spent a single 75-minute session responding to a brief new venture pitch by identifying what types of additional information they would need to decide whether to invest in the business.  Three Likert-scaled options gauged the extent to participant …

The Role Of Generative Ai In Secondary School Business Education: Insights From Teachers’ Perceptions, Leonard Busuttil, Emanuel Mizzi

International Journal for Business Education

Background/Introduction/Purpose: Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has entered classrooms more quickly than the evidence base needed to guide its use, and that evidence base remains concentrated in higher education. Comparatively little is known about secondary school business education, a curricular area that brings together accounting, business studies, economics, financial literacy, marketing, and retail, and in which teachers move between subjects whose epistemological and procedural demands differ considerably. Existing studies also tend to treat business education as a single homogeneous domain, or to examine one of its subjects in isolation. This study addresses that gap by examining how secondary school business education …

The Trump Administration's Assault On Higher Education, Salvatore J. Fallica

Proceedings of the New York State Communication Association

This essay opens the roundtable “The Disinvitation to Knowledge: The Expanding Assault on (Higher) Education and the Humanities.” After analyzing texts and contexts of news stories and commentary from legacy media sources and social media platforms collected over a five-month period from June to October 2025, the author describes the Trump Administration’s authoritarian actions attacking and destabilizing the mission of colleges and universities – and the professors and administrators charged with implementing them. The author concludes that because of its ideological censorship and defunding efforts, the Trump administration presents a major threat to the educational institutions in the United States.

The Starvation Of High Education, Heather Stassen

Proceedings of the New York State Communication Association

The author demonstrates from her experiences as a university administrator and from her observation of the market environment that higher education is being systematically starved of resources. This overview is not a representation or the voice of her current institution, but rather a description of her experiences in the field and discussions with other college administrators.

Report Review: Beyond Rigor: Closing The Quality Gap In State Dual Enrollment Policy, Diana Camilo

Journal of College Access

No abstract provided.

How Planning For Engineering Instruction Supported Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Pedagogy For Prek–12 Teachers, Kristen V. Napolitano, Amanda M. Gunning, Meghan E. Marrero

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

With the wide adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards across the United States and an increased focus on growing a diverse engineering workforce, learning to teach precollege engineering has become more important than ever. Yet limited precollege engineering certification pathway exists, leaving preK–12 teachers to integrate engineering with few resources or professional learning support. In high-need districts, where teachers are already underresourced and stretched thin, engineering may not make its way into the classroom at all. As a result, access to engineering and other STEM opportunities is disproportionately low among Black and Brown and/or low-income students in these communities, …

Between Care And Competence: Rethinking Alternative Provision., Helen V. Mulligan

Plymouth Interdisciplinary Education Open Journal

This opinion piece argues that Alternative Provision (AP) in England is failing to meet the needs of vulnerable young people due to inconsistent staffing, inadequate specialist training, and the normalisation of low educational expectations. Although some AP settings demonstrate high aspirations and committed practice, the sector as a whole remains marked by variability and a lack of coherent pedagogical structure. Drawing on research into educational inequality, emotional labour, ethics of care, and professional identity, the paper contends that systemic reform is urgently required. Recommended actions include mandatory specialist training for AP staff, national standards for curriculum and pedagogy, stronger accountability …

Finding God In All Things: A Course On Theology Of Sport At A Jesuit High School, Craig M. Smith

Journal of Catholic Education

This article examines the development, structure, and impact of a senior elective course on the Theology of Sport at an all-boys Jesuit Catholic high school in the east coast of the United States. Grounded in Ignatian pedagogy and the Catholic theological tradition, the course invites students to reflect critically on their lived experiences in sport through the lenses of play, spirituality, and Church teaching Drawing on sources such as Jürgen Moltmann’s Theology of Play, papal and Vatican statements on sport, and contemporary theological reflections on athletic experience, the course challenges the tendency to silo athletics from other dimensions of student …

A Narrative-Restorative Framework For Addressing School Bullying, Tristan Patel, Michelle Myers, Daniel Stewart

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

Bullying in schools is often addressed through punitive deterrence practices, solution-focused counseling, or restorative conferencing. These approaches often fail to recognize or account for the power imbalance that ultimately sustains bullying. This article discusses a narrative-restorative intervention to address bullying as a relational and communal issue, rather than relying on isolation or deterrence practices. The limitations of the dominant models discussed highlight the role of power in shaping bullying dynamics and connect legal and ethical responsibilities of narrative-restorative practices. Situated within the framework of California education law and professional ethical standards, at its core, undercover anti-bullying teams aim to redistribute …

Comparative Analysis Of Artificial Intelligence (Ai) Implications For Active Learning And Assessment At Various Curricular Levels Of Stem And Health Sciences In Developed Versus Underprivileged Countries, Vinay Munlapudi, Santanu De

FDLA Journal

Today’s all-pervasive emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) necessitates a comprehensive evaluation of its role in education, especially for occupational disciplines in health sciences and STEM. AI has reshaped student learning and instructors’ navigation of the evolving, post coronavirus infectious disease (COVID-19) global academic landscape. This study aimed at encapsulating evidence-based AI implications for student-centered, active learning and assessment at various curricular levels of science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) and health sciences education in developed versus underprivileged or less developed countries. An extensive, scoping review of 65 recent, scholarly publications was conducted over six months through diverse search engines (PubMed, Google …

Rockin’ Rover On The Rainbow Road, Michael Kolta, Lawrence Burgee, Ying Yuan

Transformations

This paper presents a progressive series of age-appropriate lesson plans for grades K-12 that all use the same interdisciplinary activity to educate students about Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics (STEAM) simultaneously. Technology from Texas Instruments (TI) was employed including a TI Nspire graphing calculator that can run Python programs, a TI Innovator Hub, and a TI Rover. The TI Rover is a small, robotic car that has sensors and is controlled by the calculator via the Hub hardware interface. A Python program was developed that uses the color sensor in the Rover to detect the color on colored paper …

Student Teachers Are Watching: What Are They Seeing?, Sarah J. Kaka, Taylor M. Kessner

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

This article examines the apprenticeship of observation that shapes preservice social studies teachers during clinical placements. Grounded in Lortie’s apprenticeship of observation and Bourdieu’s habitus, we draw on classroom observations collected by student teachers across several states. Findings suggest that cooperating teachers most often modeled traditional, teacher-centered instruction, including lecture and textbook-based work, while offering fewer examples of inquiry, discussion, or primary-source analysis. We argue that these everyday observations shape preservice teachers’ professional dispositions and that teacher educators, cooperating teachers, and field personnel should more intentionally provide access to ambitious, student-centered social studies practice.

We Are All In This Together Now: Exploring Community Based Partnerships Focusing On Hip-Hop Based Education, William C. Hunter, Tarol Page Clements, Gregory Washington

Journal of the Arts and Special Education

This article explores a community-based collaborative partnership between three Hip-Hop educational nonprofits, Upward Light Community Cyphers, Project STAND (Social-Emotional, Transition, Academic and Network Developing), and the Center for the Advancement of Youth Development (CAYD), all focused on mental health support for youth, and a public-school program that has serves students with and without exceptionalities. The goal shared by all organizations involved is enhanced educational access and engagement for students with and without exceptionalities. Rooted in the core elements of Hip-Hop — emceeing, DJing/music production, breakdancing, and graffiti art, the collaborative partnership has offered culturally sustaining, arts-integrated instruction that supports both …

The Effects Of Using Hip-Hop Song Lyrics During Instruction For Students With Emotional And Behavioral Disorders, Jonte C. Taylor, Millie Rodriguez

Journal of the Arts and Special Education

Hip-hop pedagogy has emerged as a culturally responsive instructional framework designed to increase student engagement, identity affirmation, and academic achievement by incorporating elements of hip-hop culture into classroom instruction. Despite growing interest in hip-hop-based education, limited empirical research has examined its effectiveness for students with disabilities, particularly students identified with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). This study investigated the effects of using hip-hop song lyrics during English language arts instruction to teach literary devices to three secondary students with EBD using a single-case multiple-baseline-across-participants probe design. Three comparison students receiving traditional textbook-based instruction were also included. Dependent variables included instructional …

Impact Of Covid-19 Pandemic On Mathematics Achievement And Problem-Solving Ability: Insights From Secondary Schools In India, Laishram Nirtish Singh, Anand Jyoti Sanasam, Jocyline Thokchom, Ningombam Cha Cogent, Laisom Sharmeswar Singh

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted students’ engagement with mathematics. This study aims to contribute to our understanding of the extent of this disrupting by examining differences in mathematics achievement and problem-solving ability between adjacent cohorts who learned Class 8 under different schooling conditions in India: Group A (pandemic-exposed Class 8 cohort) and Group B (post-reopening Class 8 cohort). Using a descriptive design in a natural setting, we selected a stratified sample of 1,200 students from Class 9 and Class 10 across 21 secondary schools in Manipur, India. The sample was stratified by gender, family type, school type, and locality to ensure …

Neurodivergent Peer Tutoring And Anti-Ableism: Two High Schoolers’ Lived Experiences While Working In A Neurodiversity-Based Writing Center, Daniel S. Harrison

The Writing Center Journal

Neurodivergence is naturally present in the writing center and most often recognized by labels like ADHD, autism, OCD, dyslexia, and so on. However, neurodivergent voices in writing center scholarship have been few and far between in postsecondary institutions (Babcock, 2017; Batt, 2018; Kleinfeld, 2023), and in the secondary writing center even less so. Therefore, the purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the personal, relational, and formative aspects of the lived experiences of two neurodivergent students through a critical disability theory lens as they provided writing consultations to their neurodivergent peers in a Mid-Atlantic, independent special education school. …

A Pedagogical “Eras” Tour: Thirteen Years Of Evolving As A Writing Methods Instructor [Special Issue], Susanna Benko

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

ABSTRACT: This reflective essay uses Taylor Swift's Eras Tour as a conceptual framework for examining thirteen years of teaching a writing methods course for preservice teachers. Drawing on longitudinal reflection, I identify four distinct pedagogical eras in my practice, each representing shifts in how I conceptualize what preservice teachers need to learn about teaching writing and how clinical experiences shape that learning. Through this extended reflection, I argue that meaningful pedagogical change becomes visible only across time, not semester-to-semester. Key insights include the sustained centrality of writing practice in methods courses and the influence of institutional changes on course design. …