Arts integration is a transformative platform for teacher candidates to think, plan, and teach for understanding that extends beyond the curriculum. This qualitative content analysis explores what pre-service teachers learned about arts integration as a route to cultural competence. The researchers show how pre-service teachers’ experiences with arts integration shift their thinking about their future pedagogical practices. Using Culturally Relevant Pedagogy as a lens, the researchers analyzed written reflections from teacher candidates (n = 15), who experienced creative processes such as problem-solving and art-making in an Arts Integration course at the end of a secondary teacher preparation program. Teacher candidate reflections show a new consideration for a culturally relevant solution to an ongoing problem or perception; plans to relate and connect to students’ interest, perspectives, and ideas; and a focus on the barriers and benefits of creative and critical problem-solving in and through the arts. The paper concludes by suggesting an art-integration themed program in teacher education as well as art-based learning as a component of professional development for novice teachers.

This study presents the perspectives and pedagogical practices of teachers who self-identify as social justice educators. Interviews with these social justice educators, who teach in large, diverse, metropolitan school districts, show that they create equitable spaces for their students. An analysis of the interview data concerning their beliefs and the ways that they describe their engagement with culturally and linguistically diverse learners showed that the practices of these social justice educators center students’ perspectives, propose culturally sustaining choices, provide access to multicultural resources, and offer a space for counternarratives and revisionism in their classrooms.

Third graders explore the world with technology and citizen science, plus an engaging reading and exercise component!

In a design-based research project, we sought to create professional development for elementary teachers to integrate computational thinking and culturally responsive teaching in their science lessons. In this research brief, we focus on the culturally responsive teaching practices incorporated by teachers in our first sub-cycle of this work. We examined their poster presentations of science lessons which participating teachers modified to integrate computational thinking and culturally responsive teaching using our framework of seven key culturally responsive teaching practices. We found that the median lesson had evidence of full integration of one and partial integration of two of our practices, but also found that some of our practices were rarely or never integrated in these lessons. As broader implications, we note an indication of the strength of diversity in the analysis process, and the production of a subconjecture to our central design conjecture.

The authors seek to amplify their voices as scholars of color in the presentation of a case study of recent geoscience higher education data in the University System of Maryland. We explore trends in geoscience graduate rates and describe the context with national, state, and local data. This paper also includes position statements and lived experiences from faculty of color who recruit in the geosciences. Three women of color share collective intersectional experiences as STEM majors in undergraduate and graduate programs, public and private institutions, HBCUs and PWIs. The aim is to offer recommendations to enhance the literature on diversity and recruitment in geoscience and advance opportunities for students seeking degrees in the geosciences.

We used Standards 3 and 4 of the Association of Middle Level Education (AMLE) 2022 Revised Middle Level Teacher Preparation Standards and The Successful Middle School: This We Believe characteristics as frameworks and presented a synthesis of the research literature (2015–2024) on the curriculum, instruction, and assessment related to middle-level teacher development. This review was part of a larger exploration of middle-level teacher development. Initially, we located 63 articles through our search terms on the curriculum, instruction, and assessment in teacher development. From there, we contributed to an updated research agenda for middle-level education . Through continued analysis and discussion, we identified trends in each area and across these three areas. We review the literature, highlight trends, and offer recommendations for middle-level educators and researchers.